SCN Phase-Wave Lattice — Local-Coupling Circadian Clock Network (2D)

This 2D companion to the 3D SCN simulator swaps its mean-field coupling for a local one: 336 phase oscillators are arranged on an actual 2D tissue grid, and each cell only couples to its immediate physical neighbors, the way real gap-junction and VIP/GABA signalling actually reaches the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Because information can only relay from cell to cell, synchrony has to spread as a genuine traveling phase wave across the tissue rather than snapping into place instantly — a real, imaged phenomenon in the SCN that a mean-field model cannot show at all. A circular clock face at the top plots the population's order-parameter vector and the external light cue directly on a 24-hour dial, while the grid below renders every cell's live phase as a color, so wavefronts, domains and their slow merging are visible directly. Coupling, noise and light-entrainment sliders plus ablation and jet-lag buttons mirror the 3D sim's controls for direct comparison.