Synchronization of extended chaotic systems

Synchronization is ubiquitous in Nature: neuronal populations, cardiac pacemakers, Josephson circuits, power-grid networks, lasers and even coupled chaotic systems can synchronize during their activity. Remarkably, all these different phenomena can be described within the common framework of nonlinear dynamics (Pikovsky et al, 2001). Synchronization of spatially extended chaotic systems is very interesting as it bridges statistical mechanics and nonlinear dynamics. In particular, the phenomenology of the synchronization transition (ST) can be put in direct correspondence with non-equilibrium critical phenomena. This parallel grounds on the erratic nature of the synchronized state, where chaos plays the role of thermal noise typical of statistical mechanics systems. In the last decade, an ongoing research activity has been devoted to relate chaotic STs to non-equilibrium phase transitions.