Coexisting states in coupled stochastic oscillators
Ram Ramaswamy
Multistability is presumed to play an important role in diverse biological processes at the cellular or subcellular level. Such dynamical phenomena operate under conditions of high internal and external noise. We study coupled stochastic processes that correspond to model circadian oscillators, with time-delayed interactions. A number of different coupling topologies are examined, and the resulting temporal patterns that arise can be quite complex: we observe that a variety of different states can arise depending on the coupling strength and time delay. These include in---phase, out--of--phase synchronous states as well as states of mixed phase, and there can be transitions between these states depending on the extent of fluctuations, namely the level of internal noise. The corresponding deterministic dynamical systems are also studied.