Connecting minimal chimeras and fully asymmetric chaotic attractors through equivariant pitchfork bifurcations

Abstract

Highly symmetric networks can exhibit partly symmetry-broken states, including clusters and chimera states, i.e., states of coexisting synchronized and unsynchronized elements. We address the $\mathbb{S}_4$ permutation symmetry of four globally coupled Stuart-Landau oscillators and uncover an interconnected web of differently symmetric solutions. Among these are chaotic $2\!-\!1\!-\!1$ minimal chimeras that arise from $2\!-\!1\!-\!1$ periodic solutions in a period-doubling cascade, as well as fully asymmetric chaotic states arising similarly from periodic $1\!-\!1\!-\!1\!-\!1$ solutions. A backbone of equivariant pitchfork bifurcations mediate between the two cascades, culminating in equivariant pitchforks of chaotic attractors.