Nonequilibrium limit cycle oscillators: fluctuations in hair bundle dynamics

Abstract

We develop a framework for the general interpretation of the stochastic dynamical system near a limit cycle. Such quasi-periodic dynamics are commonly found in a variety of nonequilibrium systems, including the spontaneous oscillations of hair cells in the inner ear. We demonstrate quite generally that in the presence of noise, the phase of the limit cycle oscillator will diffuse while deviations in the directions locally orthogonal to that limit cycle will display the Lorentzian power spectrum of a damped oscillator. We identify two mechanisms by which these stochastic dynamics can acquire a complex frequency dependence, and discuss the deformation of the mean limit cycle as a function of temperature. The theoretical ideas are applied to data obtained from spontaneously oscillating hair cells of the amphibian sacculus.

16 pages, 19 figures Changed figures to include phase density Added references

References in corpus (4)

• The physics of hearing: fluid mechanics and the active process of the inner ear
• Control of a hair bundle's mechanosensory function by its mechanical load
• Fluctuation-response theorem for the active noisy oscillator of the hair-cell bundle
• Identification of Bifurcations from Observations of Noisy Biological Oscillators

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Macroscopic Stochastic Thermodynamics
• Violation of generalized fluctuation theorems in adaptively driven steady states: Applications to hair cell oscillations
• Noise-induced distortion of nonequilibrium oscillator mean limit cycle
• Coarse-graining nonequilibrium diffusions with Markov chains