Synchronization 

In my master thesis I studied  the dynamics of the sinus node by means of modelling and simulation, in cooperation with the physiologist Björn Wohlfart and my physics tutor Gunnar Ohlén. The sinus node  is the natural pacemaker of the heart and  is placed in the right atrium. It consists of hundreds of thousands individual pacemaker cells, each of which acts as an electric oscillator with its own natural frequency. All of these cells have to be sufficiently coupled in order to synchronize to a common frequency and initiate a regular heartbeat. I carried this subject with me as a started my PhD-studies. After a while, my research became more abstract,  focusing  on general properties of synchronization in large assemblies of limit cycle oscillators with varying natural frequencies. Such synchronization  can be compared to a phase transition, in which  the level of order in a medium suddenly increases as a parameter changes. The most well-known examples are  water that freezes and metal that becomes magnetic as the temperature drops.