Synchronizing spatiotemporal chaos

We show analytically and numerically that a pair of uni-directionally coupled spatially extended systems can synchronize. For the case of partial differential equations the synchronization can be achieved by applying the scalar driving signals only at finite number of space points. Our approach is very general and can be useful for practical applications since the synchronization is achieved via feeding in the response system only the information from certain (discrete) spatial locations of the drive system. We also stress some open problems in the field of synchronization of spatiotemporal chaos. (c) 1997 American Institute of Physics.