Paper detail

Modal synchronization of coupled bistable Van der Pol oscillators

The paper revisits recently revealed regimes of the "nonconventional synchronization" in systems of coupled bi-stable Van der Pol oscillators. These regimes are characterized by periodic (or quasiperiodic) almost complete energy exchanges between the coupled oscillators. In the paper it is demonstrated that such responses correspond to synchronization of the modulation amplitudes between symmetric and antisymmetric modes of the system, with persistent phase drift. This observation substantially simplifies the treatment, reduces the dynamics to simple phase cylinder and allows to reveal a rich set of global and local bifurcations of limit cycles and tori in the system. Among other findings, one encounters an unexpected regime of nonstationary asymmetric synchronization.