Emerging long orbits and self-similar temporal sequences in classical oscillators

We analyze repulsively coupled Kuramoto oscillators, which are exposed to a distribution of natural frequencies. This source of disorder leads to closed orbits with a variety of different periods, which can be orders of magnitude longer than periods of individual oscillators. By construction the attractor space is quite rich. This may cause long transients until the deterministic trajectories find their stationary orbits. The smaller the width of the distribution about the common natural frequency is, the longer are the emerging time scales on average. Among the long-period orbits we find self-similar sequences of temporary phase-locked motion on different time scales. The ratio of time scales is determined by the ratio of widths of the distributions.