Two Coupled Oscillator Models: The Millennium Bridge and The Chimera State

Abstract

Ensembles of coupled oscillators have been seen to produce remarkable and unexpected phenomena in a wide variety of applications. Here we present two mathematical models of such oscillators. The first model is applied to the case of London's Millennium Bridge, which underwent unexpected lateral vibration due to pedestrian synchronization on opening day in 2000. The second model analyzes a new mode of collective behavior observed for a ring of nonlocally coupled phase oscillators.