Eur. Phys. J. B (2018) 91: 111
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2018-80625-8

Regular Article

Cessation of oscillations in a chemo-mechanical oscillator

¹ Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400 076, India
² Centro de Investigación en Ciencias – (IICBA), UAEM, Av. Universidad 1001, 62209 Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

^a e-mail: riphogat@gmail.com

Received: 2 November 2017
Received in final form: 19 March 2018
Published online: 13 June 2018

Abstract

In this paper, different methods for cessation of oscillations in a chemo-mechanical oscillator [mercury beating heart (MBH)] are presented. The first set of experiments were carried out on a single MBH oscillator. To achieve cessation of oscillations, two protocols, namely, inverted feedback and delayed feedback were employed. In the second set of experiments, two quasi-identical MBH oscillators are considered. They are first synchronized via a bidirectional attractive coupling. These two synchronized oscillators are thereafter coupled with a unidirectional repulsive coupling and the system dynamics were observed. Subsequently, in the next protocol, the effect of a unidirectional delay coupling on the two synchronized oscillators was explored. The cessation of oscillations in all the above experimental setups was observed as the feedback/coupling was switched on at a suitable strength. Oscillatory dynamics of the system were restored when the feedback/coupling was switched off.