Articles | Volume 21, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-21-251-2014
https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-21-251-2014
Research article
 | 
24 Feb 2014
Research article |  | 24 Feb 2014

Synchronization of coupled stick-slip oscillators

N. Sugiura, T. Hori, and Y. Kawamura

Abstract. A rationale is provided for the emergence of synchronization in a system of coupled oscillators in a stick-slip motion. The single oscillator has a limit cycle in a region of the state space for each parameter set beyond the supercritical Hopf bifurcation. The two-oscillator system that has similar weakly coupled oscillators exhibits synchronization in a parameter range. The synchronization has an anti-phase nature for an identical pair. However, it tends to be more in-phase for a non-identical pair with a rather weak coupling. A system of three identical oscillators (1, 2, and 3) coupled in a line (with two springs k12=k23) exhibits synchronization with two of them (1 and 2 or 2 and 3) being nearly in-phase. These collective behaviours are systematically estimated using the phase reduction method.

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