Cooperative action of coherent groups in broadly heterogeneous populations of interacting chemical oscillators
- *Abteilung Physikalische Chemie, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin (Dahlem), Germany; †Centro Atómico Bariloche, 8400 San Carlos de Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina; and ‡Department of Chemical Engineering, 102 Engineers' Way, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904
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Communicated by Gerhard Ertl, Max Planck Institute for the Advancement of Science, Berlin, Germany, April 24, 2004 (received for review February 2, 2004)
Abstract
We present laboratory experiments on the effects of global coupling in a population of electrochemical oscillators with a multimodal frequency distribution. The experiments show that complex collective signals are generated by this system through spontaneous emergence and joint operation of coherently acting groups representing hierarchically organized resonant clusters. Numerical simulations support these experimental findings. Our results suggest that some forms of internal self-organization, characteristic for complex multiagent systems, are already possible in simple chemical systems.
Footnotes
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↵ § To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hudson{at}virginia.edu.
- Copyright © 2004, The National Academy of Sciences
