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  • Open Access

Superexcitability in chiral oscillators with spatial degrees of freedom

Alessandro Scirè*

  • University of Pavia, Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering via A. Ferrata 5, 27100 Pavia, Italy

  • *Contact author: alessandro.scire@unipv.it
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Phys. Rev. E 113, 054203 – Published 6 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/nlm4-qkwr

Abstract

This work presents a numerical investigation of interacting chiral oscillators (COs), characterized by an intrinsic rotational handedness. The coupling of positional and orientational degrees of freedom drives a mutual influence between synchronization and spatial dynamics. The control parameter, Δ (anisotropy or detuning), represents the frequency difference between two COs (for the two-body case) or between two families of COs (for the many-body case) with opposite handedness. For two COs with opposite handedness, interaction forces generate a helical excitable dipole (HED), where excitability is a spatiotemporal act characterized by a helical trajectory. For many COs moving in two dimensions, the model displays a locking-to-unlocking transition of the Kuramoto kind driven by Δ, leading the system from ordered states to irregular spatiotemporal dynamics. Within the locking region, many “superexcitable” states emerge, sustained by a global saddle-node bifurcation, detected by the collective period behavior versus Δ. These coherent, topological states are characterized by dissipationless phase-momentum locking, which I quantified using appropriate global metrics, including the Kuramoto order parameter and parameter S, capable of detecting the phase-momentum locking. These states exhibit a wide variety of topologically protected vortex complexes, whose complexity increases with system size. The model provides a unified framework for diverse biophysical applications—from molecular ratchets to cardiac looping—identifying the symmetry breaking of motile excitable units as a fundamental process for large-scale, robust collective transport.

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Phys. Rev. E 113, 054203– Published 6 May, 2026
  • Received 18 January 2026
  • Accepted 7 April 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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