Nonlinear phenomena articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    For reservoir computing, improving prediction accuracy while maintaining low computing complexity remains a challenge. Inspired by the Granger causality, Li et al. design a data-driven and model-free framework by integrating the inference process and the inferred results on high-order structures.

    • Xin Li
    • , Qunxi Zhu
    •  & Wei Lin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting the future behaviors based on observed data remains a challenging task especially for large nonlinear systems. The authors propose a data-driven approach combining manifold learning and delay embeddings for prediction of dynamics for all components in high-dimensional systems.

    • Tao Wu
    • , Xiangyun Gao
    •  & Jürgen Kurths

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soft composite solids are building blocks for many functional and biological materials, yet it remains challenging to predict their mechanical properties. Zhao et al. propose a criticality framework to connect the mechanics to the critical behaviour near the shear-jamming transition of the dispersed inclusions.

    • Yiqiu Zhao
    • , Haitao Hu
    •  & Qin Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability of living systems to process signals and information is of vital importance. Inspired by nature, Wang and Cichos show an experimental realization of a physical reservoir computer using self-propelled active microparticles to predict chaotic time series such as the Mackey–Glass and Lorenz series.

    • Xiangzun Wang
    •  & Frank Cichos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The physics of confinement manifested in quantum spin chain models has been recently studied in quantum simulators. Here the authors report a numerical study of confinement of soliton excitations in a nonintegrable bosonic quantum field theory realized with a superconducting quantum electronic circuit.

    • Ananda Roy
    •  & Sergei L. Lukyanov

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Degree distributions are often used as informative descriptions of complex networks, however previous studies mainly focused on characterizing the tail of the distribution. The authors propose an evolutionary model that integrates the weight and degree of a node, which allows to better capture degree and degree ratio distributions of real networks and replicate their evolution processes.

    • Bin Zhou
    • , Petter Holme
    •  & Xiangyi Meng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Solitons are peculiar waves propagating without changing their shape. Here, the authors show that colloidal particles in a rotating optical landscape create rapidly propagating solitons, formed by particle clusters through many-body interactions.

    • Eric Cereceda-López
    • , Alexander P. Antonov
    •  & Pietro Tierno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In nonlinear tracking control, relevant to robotic applications, the knowledge on the system model may be not available and there is current need in model-free approaches to track a desired trajectory, regular or chaotic. The authors introduce here a framework that employs machine learning to control a two-arm robotic manipulator using only partially observed states.

    • Zheng-Meng Zhai
    • , Mohammadamin Moradi
    •  & Ying-Cheng Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Personal communication networks through mobile phones and online platforms can be characterized by patterns of tie strengths. The authors propose a model to explain driving mechanisms of emerging tie strength heterogeneity in social networks, observing similarity of patterns across various datasets.

    • Gerardo Iñiguez
    • , Sara Heydari
    •  & Jari Saramäki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Conservation laws are crucial for analyzing and modeling nonlinear dynamical systems; however, identification of conserved quantities is often quite challenging. The authors propose here a geometric approach to discovering conservation laws directly from trajectory data that does not require an explicit dynamical model of the system or detailed time information.

    • Peter Y. Lu
    • , Rumen Dangovski
    •  & Marin Soljačić

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing the speed of magnetization switching is an obvious pathway to improve spintronic device performance. However, very fast magnetization switching is accompanied by instabilities. Here, Gidding et al study these instabilities using optical pumping, and show that instability generated spin-waves can achieve a high enough amplitude to drive switching of the magnetization, with a distinctive coherent pattern.

    • M. Gidding
    • , T. Janssen
    •  & A. Kirilyuk

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding of diffusive and spreading processes in networks remains challenging when dynamics of the network is complex. The authors propose a quantity to reflect the potential of a network node to diffuse information, that may serve to develop interventions for improved network efficiency.

    • Tiago A. Schieber
    • , Laura C. Carpi
    •  & Martín G. Ravetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Active field theories are powerful tools to explain phenomena such as motility-induced phase separation. The authors report an active analogue to the quantum mechanics tunneling effect, showing similarity to the Schrödinger equation, by introducing an extended model applicable to active particles with inertia.

    • Michael te Vrugt
    • , Tobias Frohoff-Hülsmann
    •  & Raphael Wittkowski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Populations of swarming coupled oscillators with inhomogeneous natural frequencies and chirality are relevant for active matter systems and micro-robotics. The authors model and analyze a variety of their self-organized behaviors that mimic natural and artificial micro-scale collective systems.

    • Steven Ceron
    • , Kevin O’Keeffe
    •  & Kirstin Petersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this Bayesian inference study, the authors aim to quantify the impact of the men’s 2020 UEFA Euro Football Championship on COVID-19 spread in twelve participating countries. They estimate that 0.84 million cases and 1,700 deaths were attributable to the championship, with most impacts in England and Scotland.

    • Jonas Dehning
    • , Sebastian B. Mohr
    •  & Viola Priesemann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Feedback control applied to mechanical resonators can lead to the formation of various complex dynamic behaviors. Here the authors demonstrate flexible and controllable switching between dynamical structures in the response of harmonically driven micro-mechanical resonators.

    • Axel M. Eriksson
    • , Oriel Shoshani
    •  & David A. Czaplewski

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The communication in active systems plays an important role in their self-organization, yet the detail is not fully understood. Here, Ziepke et al. show the formation of complex structures at multiple scales amongst interactive agents that locally process information transmitted by chemical signals.

    • Alexander Ziepke
    • , Ivan Maryshev
    •  & Erwin Frey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    2D transition metal ditellurides exhibit nontrivial topological phases, but the controlled bottom-up synthesis of these materials is still challenging. Here, the authors report the layer-by-layer growth of large-area bilayer and trilayer 1T’ MoTe2 films, showing thickness-dependent ferroelectricity and nonlinear Hall effect.

    • Teng Ma
    • , Hao Chen
    •  & Kian Ping Loh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Increasing the capacity of existing lines or adding new lines in power grids may, counterintuitively, reduce the system performance and promote blackouts. The authors propose an approach for prediction of edges that lower system performance and defining potential constrains for grid extensions.

    • Benjamin Schäfer
    • , Thiemo Pesch
    •  & Marc Timme

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spreading processes and cascading failures on complex networks are often triggered by external perturbations. The authors uncover the impact of network motifs on the processes of perturbations propagation through networks, and networks’ response dynamics.

    • Xiaoge Bao
    • , Qitong Hu
    •  & Jan Nagler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Networks with higher-order interactions are relevant to variety of real-world applications, they can be good description of data even if the system has only pairwise interactions. The authors uncover the hypernetwork emergence in coupled nonlinear oscillators and electrochemical experiments.

    • Eddie Nijholt
    • , Jorge Luis Ocampo-Espindola
    •  & Tiago Pereira

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetohydrodynamic instabilities are related to different characteristics and behavior of fluids. Here the authors report an experiment and simulation combined study of a global non-axisymmetric MHD instability that exists at sufficiently large rotation rates and intermediate magnetic field strengths.

    • Yin Wang
    • , Erik P. Gilson
    •  & Hantao Ji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In modern power grids, knowing the required electric power demand and its variations is necessary to balance demand and supply. The authors propose a data-driven approach to create high-resolution load profiles and characterize their fluctuations, based on recorded data of electricity consumption.

    • Mehrnaz Anvari
    • , Elisavet Proedrou
    •  & Marc Timme

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Confining plasma for fusion requires controlling many parameters. Here the authors report the existence of a narrow parameter space for the simultaneous confinement of energetic alpha particles and removal of slowed-down helium ash in a magnetically confined fusion plasma by using kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic hybrid simulations.

    • A. Bierwage
    • , K. Shinohara
    •  & S. Ide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Boolean networks modelling various biological processes are characterized by nonlinear reversible dynamics that makes their control challenging. The authors introduce extended concepts of influence and control, typically considered in the study of spreading processes, for Boolean dynamics.

    • Thomas Parmer
    • , Luis M. Rocha
    •  & Filippo Radicchi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Topological phases are challenging to identify in systems with general, strong nonlinearities. Here, the authors establish the analytic methodology that defines the topological invariant of nonlinear normal modes. Strongly nonlinear topological boundary modes are guaranteed by the nontrivial topological index.

    • Di Zhou
    • , D. Zeb Rocklin
    •  & Yugui Yao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light–matter interaction is expected to be isotropic in free-electron-like materials. Here, by using time- and phase-resolved photoemission, the authors observe signatures of an anisotropic interaction on a noble metal surface, that can only be accounted for by optical transition dipoles with a fixed orientation.

    • Tobias Eul
    • , Eva Prinz
    •  & Benjamin Stadtmüller

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Helium isotopes are interesting platforms for testing the quantum properties of fluids. Here the authors demonstrate quantum one-dimensional behaviour of helium (4He) confined in nanopores by using neutron scattering.

    • Adrian Del Maestro
    • , Nathan S. Nichols
    •  & Paul E. Sokol

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the transport of the particles and fuel in the fusion plasma is fundamentally important. Here the authors report a cross-link interaction between electron- and ion-scale turbulences in plasma in terms of trapped electron mode and electron temperature gradient modes and their implication to fusion plasma.

    • Shinya Maeyama
    • , Tomo-Hiko Watanabe
    •  & Akihiro Ishizawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rumors and information spreading emerge naturally from human-to-human interaction and have a growing impact on people’s lives due to increasing and faster access to information, whether trustworthy or not. The authors study the Maki–Thompson rumor model and its variation, revealing a phase transition and providing insights into the nature of this transition.

    • Guilherme Ferraz de Arruda
    • , Lucas G. S. Jeub
    •  & Yamir Moreno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding of the collective motion seen in biological systems is crucial for development of autonomous robots and swarm computing. The authors introduce an experimental platform with liquid crystal driven by external electric field, that mimics the collective motion of living systems.

    • Yuan Shen
    •  & Ingo Dierking

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ranking lists are relevant to various areas of nature and society, however their evolution with the elements changing rank in time remained unexplored. The authors uncover a mechanism of ranking dynamics induced by the flux governing the arrival of new elements in the list, for improved predictability of ranking models.

    • Gerardo Iñiguez
    • , Carlos Pineda
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In consensus-based collective dynamics, the occurrence of simple and complex contagions shapes system behavior. The authors analyze a transition from simple to complex contagions in collective decision-making processes based on consensus, and demonstrate it with a swarm robotic system.

    • Nikolaj Horsevad
    • , David Mateo
    •  & Roland Bouffanais

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Infrastructure and power systems are often represented as multilayer structures of interdependent networks. Danziger and Barabási demonstrate the presence of recovery coupling in such systems, where the recovery of an element in one network requires resources from nodes and links in another network.

    • Michael M. Danziger
    •  & Albert-László Barabási

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Optimal control of complex dynamical systems can be challenging due to cost constraints and analytical intractability. The authors propose a machine-learning-based control framework able to learn control signals and force complex high-dimensional dynamical systems towards a desired target state.

    • Lucas Böttcher
    • , Nino Antulov-Fantulin
    •  & Thomas Asikis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors introduce a light powered artificial micro-swimmers performing biological-like dynamics relevant for swarm robotics. The experimental dense swarms are shown to form artificial active clusters with internal fluid-like and turbulent dynamics, similar to real swarming bacteria.

    • Matan Yah Ben Zion
    • , Yaelin Caba
    •  & Paul M. Chaikin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Megaripples are sand landforms found in wind-blown environments. A newly identified characteristic signature of the underlying bimodal sand transport process is found in the grain-size distribution on megaripples and could lend insight into transport conditions on Earth and other planetary bodies.

    • Katharina Tholen
    • , Thomas Pähtz
    •  & Klaus Kroy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social convention change due to diffusion is often described by agent-based models focusing on the role of social coordination. In this work the authors uncover two additional individual-level mechanisms, trend-seeking and inertia, that can critically shape the collective behavior of the population.

    • Mengbin Ye
    • , Lorenzo Zino
    •  & Ming Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Systems of interacting oscillatory units show various types of dynamics, from uniform low-dimensional motion to high-dimensional disorder. The authors follow the path from synchronous to turbulent state via variety of complex patterns that split and collide, explaining mechanisms of their formation.

    • Sindre W. Haugland
    • , Anton Tosolini
    •  & Katharina Krischer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Higher order synchronization in optomechanical devices is relatively unexplored. Here the authors use nonlinear parametric effects to entrain an optomechanical oscillator with a drive signal several octaves away from the oscillation frequency, and demonstrate RF frequency division.

    • Caique C. Rodrigues
    • , Cauê M. Kersul
    •  & Gustavo S. Wiederhecker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spontaneous symmetry breaking can induce instabilities in natural and engineered systems. Nicolaou et al. show that such instabilities can be prevented by introducing suitable system asymmetry in the form of spatial heterogeneity, relevant for the development of novel control and design techniques.

    • Zachary G. Nicolaou
    • , Daniel J. Case
    •  & Adilson E. Motter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Neuromorphic nanowire networks are found to exhibit neural-like dynamics, including phase transitions and avalanche criticality. Hochstetter and Kuncic et al. show that the dynamical state at the edge-of-chaos is optimal for learning and favours computationally complex information processing tasks.

    • Joel Hochstetter
    • , Ruomin Zhu
    •  & Zdenka Kuncic

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dissipative solitons and their symmetry breaking is important for photonic applications. Here the authors show that dissipative solitons can undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking in a two-component nonlinear optical ring resonator, resulting in the coexistence of distinct vectorial solitons with asymmetric, mirror-like states of polarization.

    • Gang Xu
    • , Alexander U. Nielsen
    •  & Miro Erkintalo

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