Ordering chaos by random shortcuts

In this Letter, the effects of random shortcuts in an array of coupled nonlinear chaotic pendulums and their ability to control the dynamical behavior of the system are investigated. We show that random shortcuts can induce periodic synchronized spatiotemporal motions, even though all oscillators are chaotic when uncoupled. This process exhibits a nonmonotonic dependence on the density of shortcuts. Specifically, there is an optimal amount of random shortcuts, which can induce the most ordered motion characterized by the largest order parameter that is introduced to measure the spatiotemporal order. Our results imply that topological randomness can tame spatiotemporal chaos.