Coupled parametric oscillators were recently employed as simulators of artificial Ising networks, with the potential to solve computationally hard minimization problems. We demonstrate a new dynamical regime within the simplest network—two coupled parametric oscillators, where the oscillators never reach a steady state, but show persistent, full-scale, coherent beats, whose frequency reflects the coupling properties and strength. We present a detailed theoretical and experimental study and show that this new dynamical regime appears over a wide range of parameters near the oscillation threshold and depends on the nature of the coupling (dissipative or energy preserving). Thus, a system of coupled parametric oscillators transcends the Ising description and manifests unique coherent dynamics, which may have important implications for coherent computation machines.

• Received 23 January 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.083901