Traveling chimera patterns in a two-dimensional neuronal network

Highlights: • We explore traveling chimera state in a two-dimensional neuronal network. • Neurons are locally and non-locally connected through electric and chemical synapses, respectively. • Direction of propagation of the patterns in the grid is determined by the energy function analysis. We study the emergence of the traveling chimera state in a two-dimensional network of Hindmarsh-Rose burst neurons with the mutual presence of local and non-local couplings. We show that in the unique presence of the non-local chemical coupling modeled by a nonlinear function, the traveling chimera phenomenon occurs with a displacement in both directions of the plane of the grid. The introduction of local electrical coupling shows that the mutual influence of the two types of coupling can, for certain values, generate traveling chimera, imperfect-traveling, traveling multi-clusters, and alternating traveling chimera, i.e. the presence in the network under study, of patterns of coherent elements interspersed by other incoherent elements in movement and alternately changing their position over time. The confirmation of the states of coherence is done by introducing the parameter of the instantaneous local order parameter in two dimensions. Finally we extend our analysis through mathematical tools such as the Hamilton energy function to determine the direction of patterns' propagation in two dimensions.