Influence of parameters inhomogeneity on the existence of chimera states in a ring of nonlocally coupled maps

The aim of the research is to study the influence of inhomogeneity in a control parameter of all partial elements in a ring of nonlocally coupled chaotic maps on the possibility of observing chimera states in the system and to compare the changes in regions of chimera realization using different methods of introducing the inhomogeneity. Methods. In this paper, snapshots of the system dynamics are constructed for various values of the parameters, as well as spatial distributions of cross-correlation coefficient values, which enable us to determine the regime observed in the system for these parameters. To improve the accuracy of the obtained results, the numerical studies are carried out for fifty different realizations of initial conditions of the ring elements. Results. It is shown that a fixed inhomogeneous distribution of the control parameters with increasing noise intensity leads to an increase in the range of the coupling strength where chimera states are observed. With this, the boundary lying in the region of strong coupling changes more significantly as compared with the case of weak coupling strength. The opposite effect is provided when the control parameters are permanently affected by noise. In this case increasing the noise intensity leads to a decrease in the interval of existence of chimera states. Additionally, the nature of the random variable distribution (normal or uniform one) does not strongly influence the observed changes in the ring dynamics. The regions of existence of chimera states are constructed in the plane of "coupling strength - noise intensity" parameters. Conclusion. We have studied how the region of existence of chimeras changes when the coupling strength between the ring elements is varied and when different characteristics of the inhomogeneous distribution of the control parameters are used. It has been shown that in order to increase the region of observing chimera states, the control parameters of the elements must be distributed inhomogeneously over the entire ensemble. To reduce this region, a constant noise effect on the control parameters should be used.