title: Phase slips in oscillatory hair bundles.
abstract: Hair cells of the inner ear contain an active amplifier that allows them to detect extremely weak signals. As one of the manifestations of an active process, spontaneous oscillations arise in fluid immersed hair bundles of in vitro preparations of selected auditory and vestibular organs. We measure the phase-locking dynamics of oscillatory bundles exposed to low-amplitude sinusoidal signals, a transition that can be described by a saddle-node bifurcation on an invariant circle. The transition is characterized by the occurrence of phase slips, at a rate that is dependent on the amplitude and detuning of the applied drive. The resultant staircase structure in the phase of the oscillation can be described by the stochastic Adler equation, which reproduces the statistics of phase slip production.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, California Nanosystem Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA.
authors.forename: Yuttana
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Roongthumskul
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, California Nanosystem Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA.
authors.forename: Roie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shlomovitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, California Nanosystem Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA.
authors.forename: Robijn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bruinsma
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, California Nanosystem Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024, USA.
authors.forename: Dolores
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bozovic
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006199:Hair Cells, Auditory, Inner / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D011892:Rana catesbeiana; D012444:Saccule and Utricle / Q000502:physiology; D013269:Stochastic Processes