Impact of pulse exposure on chimera state in ensemble of FitzHugh–Nagumo systems

In this article, we consider the influence of a periodic sequence of Gaussian pulses on a chimera state in a ring of coupled FitzHugh–Nagumo systems. We found that on the way to complete spatial synchronization, one can observe a number of variations of chimera states that are not typical for the parameter range under consideration. For example, the following modes were found: breathing chimera, chimera with intermittency in the incoherent part, traveling chimera with strong intermittency, and others. For comparison, here we also consider the impact of a harmonic influence on the same chimera, and to preserve the generality of the conclusions, we compare the regimes caused by both a purely positive harmonic influence and a positive–negative one.