Pinning control of chimera states in systems with higher-order interactions

Abstract: Understanding and controlling the mechanisms behind synchronization phenomena is of paramount importance in nonlinear science. In particular, chimera states, patterns in which order and disorder coexist simultaneously, continue to puzzle scholars, due to their elusive nature. Recently, it has been shown that higher-order interactions greatly promote the onset of chimera states, which are easier to found and more resilient when the system units interact in group. In this work, we show that the higher-order framework is fertile not only for the emergence of chimera states, but also for their control. Via pinning control, a technique consisting in applying a forcing to a subset of the nodes, we are able to trigger the emergence of chimera states with only a small fraction of controlled nodes, at striking contrast with the case without higher-order interactions. We show that our setting is robust for different higher-order topologies and types of pinning control and, finally, we give a heuristic interpretation of the results via phase reduction theory. Our numerical and theoretical results provide further understanding on how higher-order interactions shape nonlinear dynamics.