Imperfect traveling chimera states induced by local synaptic gradient coupling

Abstract

In this paper we report the occurrence of chimera patterns in a network of neuronal oscillators, which are coupled through {\it local}, synaptic {\it gradient} coupling. We discover a new chimera pattern, namely the {\it imperfect traveling chimera} where the incoherent traveling domain spreads into the coherent domain of the network. Remarkably, we also find that chimera states arise even for {\it one-way} local coupling, which is in contrast to the earlier belief that only nonlocal, global or nearest neighbor local coupling can give rise to chimera; this find further relaxes the essential connectivity requirement of getting a chimera state. We choose a network of identical bursting Hindmarsh-Rose neuronal oscillators and show that depending upon the relative strength of the synaptic and gradient coupling several chimera patterns emerge. We map all the spatiotemporal behaviors in parameter space and identify the transitions among several chimera patterns, in-phase synchronized state and global amplitude death state.