SEMINAIRE MERCREDI 25 FEVRIER 2004 14 heures Salle Séminaire 5 Centre de Physique Théorique Marseille-Luminy Michael Rosenblum Nonlinear Dynamics Group, University of Potsdam Title: Controlling synchronization in complex systems Summary: Synchronization phenomena are abundant in physical, chemical and biological systems. After an introduction to the synchronization theory, with an emphasis on recent achievements in understanding the phase synchronization of chaotic oscillators, I will consider two problems of synchronization control. First, I will demonstrate that the coherence of a noisy or chaotic self-sustained oscillator can be efficiently controlled by the delayed feedback and will discuss applications of the effect for the control of locking. Next, I will present a technique to control coherent collective oscillations in ensembles of globally coupled units (self-sustained oscillators or maps, periodic or chaotic). I will present numerical and theoretical results demonstrating that a time delayed feedback in the mean field can, depending on the parameters, enhance or suppress the self-synchronization in the population. In particular, the populations of neurons will be considered. I will discuss possible applications of the technique in neuroscience, as an approach to quench pathological brain rhythms.