Biharmonic maps in two dimensions

Biharmonic maps between surfaces are studied in this paper. We compute the bitension field of a map between surfaces with conformal metrics in complex coordinates. As applications, we show that a linear map from Euclidean plane into ${(\mathbb{R}^2, \sigma^2dwd \bar w)}$ is always biharmonic if the conformal factor σ is bianalytic; we construct a family of such σ, and we give a classification of linear biharmonic maps between 2 spheres minus a point. We also study biharmonic maps between surfaces with warped product metrics. This includes a classification of linear biharmonic maps between hyperbolic planes and some constructions of many proper biharmonic maps into a circular cone or a helicoid.     

“Coherence–incoherence” transition in ensembles of nonlocally coupled chaotic oscillators with nonhyperbolic and hyperbolic attractors

We consider in detail similarities and differences of the “coherence–incoherence” transition in ensembles of nonlocally coupled chaotic discrete-time systems with nonhyperbolic and hyperbolic attractors. As basic models we employ the Hénon map and the Lozi map. We show that phase and amplitude chimera states appear in a ring of coupled Hénon maps, while no chimeras are observed in an ensemble of coupled Lozi maps. In the latter, the transition to spatio-temporal chaos occurs via solitary states. We present numerical results for the coupling function which describes the impact of neighboring oscillators on each partial element of an ensemble with nonlocal coupling. Varying the coupling strength we analyze the evolution of the coupling function and discuss in detail its role in the “coherence–incoherence” transition in the ensembles of Hénon and Lozi maps.     

Affine biharmonic submanifolds in 3-dimensional pseudo-Hermitian geometry

The notion of biharmonic map between Riemannian manifolds is generalized to maps from Riemannian manifolds into affine manifolds. Hopf cylinders in 3-dimensional Sasakian space forms which are biharmonic with respect to Tanaka-Webster connection are classified. Dedicated to professor John C. Wood on his 60th birthday.     

Unimodal maps as boundary restrictions of two-dimensional full-folding maps

It is shown that every unimodal map is realized as a restriction of a simple map defined on the unit disc to a part of its boundary. Our two-dimensional map is called a full-folding map, which is defined generally on a compact metric space. It is a generalization of the full tent map in that it has two homeomorphic inverse maps and thus every non-critical point has two inverse images.     

On Constructing Biharmonic Maps and Metrics

We construct biharmonic nonharmonic maps between Riemannian manifoldsM and N by first making the ansatz that M N be aharmonic map and then deforming the metric conformally on M to render biharmonic. The deformation will, in general, destroy theharmonicity of . We call a metric which renders the identity mapbiharmonic, a biharmonic metric. On an Einstein manifold, theonly conformally equivalent biharmonic metrics are defined byisoparametric functions.     

A bijection for covered maps, or a shortcut between Harer-Zagier?s and Jackson?s formulas

We consider maps on orientable surfaces. A map is called unicellular if it has a single face. A covered map is a map (of genus g) with a marked unicellular spanning submap (which can have any genus in {0,1,…,g}). Our main result is a bijection between covered maps with n edges and genus g and pairs made of a plane tree with n edges and a unicellular bipartite map of genus g with n+1 edges. In the planar case, covered maps are maps with a marked spanning tree and our bijection specializes into a construction obtained by the first author in Bernardi (2007) [4].Covered maps can also be seen as shuffles of two unicellular maps (one representing the unicellular submap, the other representing the dual unicellular submap). Thus, our bijection gives a correspondence between shuffles of unicellular maps, and pairs made of a plane tree and a unicellular bipartite map. In terms of counting, this establishes the equivalence between a formula due to Harer and Zagier for general unicellular maps, and a formula due to Jackson for bipartite unicellular maps.We also show that the bijection of Bouttier, Di Francesco and Guitter (2004) [8] (which generalizes a previous bijection by Schaeffer, 1998 [33]) between bipartite maps and so-called well-labeled mobiles can be obtained as a special case of our bijection.     

Biharmonic Maps from Tori into a 2-Sphere

Biharmonic maps are generalizations of harmonic maps. A well-known result on harmonic maps between surfaces shows that there exists no harmonic map from a torus into a sphere(whatever the metrics chosen) in the homotopy class of maps of Brower degree±1. It would be interesting to know if there exists any biharmonic map in that homotopy class of maps. The authors obtain some classifications on biharmonic maps from a torus into a sphere, where the torus is provided with a flat or a class of non-flat metrics whilst the sphere is provided with the standard metric. The results in this paper show that there exists no proper biharmonic maps of degree±1 in a large family of maps from a torus into a sphere.     

Dynamics of chaotic maps for modelling the multifractal spectrum of human brain Diffusion Tensor Images

The multifractal spectra of 3d Diffusion Tensor Images (DTI) obtained by magnetic resonance imaging of the human brain are studied. They are shown to deviate substantially from artificial brain images with the same white matter intensity. All spectra, obtained from 12 healthy subjects, show common characteristics indicating non-trivial moments of the intensity. To model the spectra the dynamics of the chaotic Ikeda map are used. The DTI multifractal spectra for positive q are best approximated by 3d coupled Ikeda maps in the fully developed chaotic regime. The coupling constants are as small as α = 0.01. These results reflect not only the white tissue non-trivial architectural complexity in the human brain, but also demonstrate the presence and importance of coupling between neuron axons. The architectural complexity is also mirrored by the deviations in the negative q-spectra, where the rare events dominate. To obtain a good agreement in the DTI negative q-spectrum of the brain with the Ikeda dynamics, it is enough to slightly modify the most rare events of the coupled Ikeda distributions. The representation of Diffusion Tensor Images with coupled Ikeda maps is not unique: similar conclusions are drawn when other chaotic maps (Tent, Logistic or Henon maps) are employed in the modelling of the neuron axons network.     

Vibrational resonance in neuron populations with hybrid synapses

In this paper, vibrational resonance in excitable neuron populations with synapses is investigated by numerical simulation. In particular, the effect of the hybrid synapses on the signal detection and transmission in neural system is studied. Different topologies from regular and random networks to small-world networks are considered to analyze the dependence of vibrational resonance on the network structure and parameters. It is shown that there exists an optimal amplitude of high-frequency driving, enhancing the response of coupled neuron populations to a subthreshold signal. We find that chemical synaptic coupling is more efficient than the electrical coupling in signal detection and electrical synaptic coupling is better in signal transmission. Neuron populations with hybrid synapses compromise the merits of the two types of coupling and have an advantage in information communication.     

Absolutely continuous invariant measures for random maps with position dependent probabilities

A random map is discrete-time dynamical system in which one of a number of transformations is randomly selected and applied at each iteration of the process. Usually the map τ_k is chosen from a finite collection of maps with constant probability p_k. In this note we allow the p_k's to be functions of position. In this case, the random map cannot be considered to be a skew product. The main result provides a sufficient condition for the existence of an absolutely continuous invariant measure for position dependent random maps on [0,1]. Geometrical and topological properties of sets of absolutely continuous invariant measures, attainable by means of position dependent random maps, are studied theoretically and numerically.     

Dynamics of Inhomogeneous Chains of Coupled Quadratic Maps

A new effective local analysis method is elaborated for coupled map dynamics. In contrast to the previously suggested methods, it allows visually investigating the evolution of synchronization and complex-behavior domains for a distributed medium described by a set of maps. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated with examples of ring and flow models of diffusively coupled quadratic maps. An analysis of a ring chain in the presence of space defects reveals some new global-behavior phenomena.     

Stochastic resonance in spatiotemporal on–off intermittency

Stochastic resonance is investigated in a generic system with spatiotemporal on–off intermittency: a chain of coupled logistic maps with a time-dependent control parameter, driven by a spatiotemporal periodic signal. Spatiotemporal correlation function between the periodic signal and the output signal, reflecting the occurrence of laminar phases and chaotic bursts, has a maximum as a function of the mean value of the control parameter. For a given period and length of the periodic signal the height of this maximum can be increased by choosing an optimum coupling strength between maps. It is argued that the obtained result can be interpreted as an example of noise-free (dynamical) stochastic resonance in a system with spatiotemporal intermittency.     

Some Results of Biharmonic Maps

In this paper, we investigate biharmonic maps from a complete Riemannian manifold into a Riemannian manifold with non-positive sectional curvature. We obtain some non-existence results for these maps.     

On biharmonic maps and their generalizations

We give a new proof of regularity of biharmonic maps from four-dimensional domains into spheres, showing first that the biharmonic map system is equivalent to a set of bilinear identities in divergence form. The method of reverse Hölder inequalities is used next to prove continuity of solutions and higher integrability of their second order derivatives. As a byproduct, we also prove that a weak limit of biharmonic maps into a sphere is again biharmonic. The proof of regularity can be adapted to biharmonic maps on the Heisenberg group, and to other functionals leading to fourth order elliptic equations with critical nonlinearities in lower order derivatives.Received: 6 February 2003, Accepted: 12 March 2003, Published online: 16 May 2003Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 35J60, 35H20Pawel Strzelecki: Current address (till September 2003): Mathematisches Institut der Universität Bonn, Beringstr. 1, 53115 Bonn, Germany (email: strzelec@math.uni-bonn.de). The author is partially supported by KBN grant no. 2-PO3A-028-22;he gratefully acknowledgesthe hospitality of his colleagues from Bonn,and the generosity of Humboldt Foundation.     

Various synchronization phenomena in bidirectionally coupled double scroll circuits

In this paper, the various cases of synchronization phenomena investigated in a system of two bidirectionally coupled double scroll circuits, were studied. Complete synchronization, inverse lag synchronization, and inverse π-lag synchronization are the observed synchronization phenomena, as the coupling factor is varied. The inverse lag synchronization phenomenon in mutually coupled identical oscillators is presented for the first time. As the coupling factor is increased, the system undergoes a transition from chaotic desynchronization to chaotic complete synchronization, while inverse lag synchronization and inverse π-lag synchronization are observed for greater values of the coupling factor, depending on the initial conditions of the state variables of the system. Inverse π-lag synchronization in coupled nonlinear oscillators is a special case of lag synchronization, which is also presented for the first time.     

Integrate-and-fire models with an almost periodic input function

We investigate leaky integrate-and-fire models (LIF models for short) driven by Stepanov and μ-almost periodic functions. Special attention is paid to the properties of the firing map and its displacement, which give information about the spiking behavior of the considered system. We provide conditions under which such maps are well-defined and are uniformly continuous. We show that the LIF models with Stepanov almost periodic inputs have uniformly almost periodic displacements. We also show that in the case of μ-almost periodic drives it may happen that the displacement map is uniformly continuous, but is not μ-almost periodic (and thus cannot be Stepanov or uniformly almost periodic). By allowing discontinuous inputs, we extend some previous results, showing, for example, that the firing rate for the LIF models with Stepanov almost periodic input exists and is unique. This is a starting point for the investigation of the dynamics of almost-periodically driven integrate-and-fire systems.     

Uniform spherical grids via equal area projection from the cube to the sphere

We construct an area preserving map from a cube to the unit sphere S², both centered at the origin. More precisely, each face F_i of the cube is first projected to a curved square S_i of the same area, and then each S_i is projected onto the sphere by inverse Lambert azimuthal equal area projection, with respect to the points situated at the intersection of the coordinate axes with S². This map is then used to construct uniform and refinable grids on a sphere, starting from any grid on a square.