Noise enhanced phase synchronization and coherence resonance in sets of chaotic oscillators with weak global coupling

The effect of noise on phase synchronization in small sets and larger populations of weakly coupled chaotic oscillators is explored. Both independent and correlated noise are found to enhance phase synchronization of two coupled chaotic oscillators below the synchronization threshold; this is in contrast to the behavior of two coupled periodic oscillators. This constructive effect of noise results from the interplay between noise and the locking features of unstable periodic orbits. We show that in a population of nonidentical chaotic oscillators, correlated noise enhances synchronization in the weak coupling region. The interplay between noise and weak coupling induces a collective motion in which the coherence is maximal at an optimal noise intensity. Both the noise-enhanced phase synchronization and the coherence resonance numerically observed in coupled chaotic R?ssler oscillators are verified experimentally with an array of chaotic electrochemical oscillators.     

Stochastic phase dynamics and noise-induced mixed-mode oscillations in coupled oscillators

Synaptically coupled neurons show in-phase or antiphase synchrony depending on the chemical and dynamical nature of the synapse. Deterministic theory helps predict the phase differences between two phase-locked oscillators when the coupling is weak. In the presence of noise, however, deterministic theory faces difficulty when the coexistence of multiple stable oscillatory solutions occurs. We analyze the solution structure of two coupled neuronal oscillators for parameter values between a subcritical Hopf bifurcation point and a saddle node point of the periodic branch that bifurcates from the Hopf point, where a rich variety of coexisting solutions including asymmetric localized oscillations occurs. We construct these solutions via a multiscale analysis and explore the general bifurcation scenario using the lambda-omega model. We show for both excitatory and inhibitory synapses that noise causes important changes in the phase and amplitude dynamics of such coupled neuronal oscillators when multiple oscillatory solutions coexist. Mixed-mode oscillations occur when distinct bistable solutions are randomly visited. The phase difference between the coupled oscillators in the localized solution, coexisting with in-phase or antiphase solutions, is clearly represented in the stochastic phase dynamics.     

Clusters and switchers in globally coupled photochemical oscillators

We experimentally investigate the transition to synchronization in a population of photochemical oscillators with weak global coupling. Above a critical coupling strength the oscillators join a one-phase group or two-phase clusters. The number of oscillators in each cluster depends on the initial phase distribution, and irregular switching of oscillators between clusters is observed. The fully synchronized state emerges above a second critical coupling strength. In agreement with earlier theory, the experiments demonstrate the importance of population heterogeneity in cluster multistability.     

Interplay of noise and coupling in heterogeneous ensembles of phase oscillators

We study the effects of noise on the collective dynamics of an ensemble of coupled phase oscillators whose natural frequencies are all identical, but whose coupling strengths are not the same all over the ensemble. The intensity of noise can also be heterogeneous, representing diversity in the individual responses to external fluctuations. We show that the desynchronization transition induced by noise may be completely suppressed, even for arbitrarily large noise intensities, is the distribution of coupling strengths decays slowly enough for large couplings. Equivalently, if the response to noise of a sufficiently large fraction of the ensemble is weak enough, desynchronization cannot occur. The two effects combine with each other when the response to noise and the coupling strength of each oscillator are correlated. This combination is quantitatively characterized and illustrated with explicit examples.     

Synchronization of oscillators coupled through an environment

We study synchronization of oscillators that are indirectly coupled through their interaction with an environment. We give criteria for the stability or instability of a synchronized oscillation. Using these criteria we investigate synchronization of systems of oscillators which are weakly coupled, in the sense that the influence of the oscillators on the environment is weak. We prove that arbitrarily weak coupling will synchronize the oscillators, provided that this coupling is of the ‘right’ sign. We illustrate our general results by applications to a model of coupled GnRH neuron oscillators proposed by Khadra and Li [A. Khadra, Y.X. Li, A model for the pulsatile secretion of gonadotropin-releasing hormone from synchronized hypothalamic neurons, Biophys. J. 91 (2006) 74-83.], and to indirectly weakly-coupled λ-ω oscillators.     

Chaotic bursting as chaotic itinerancy in coupled neural oscillators

We show that chaotic bursting activity observed in coupled neural oscillators is a kind of chaotic itinerancy. In neuronal systems with phase deformation along the trajectory, diffusive coupling induces a dephasing effect. Because of this effect, an antiphase synchronized solution is stable for weak coupling, while an in-phase solution is stable for very strong coupling. For intermediate coupling, a chaotic bursting activity is generated. It is a mixture of three different states: an antiphase firing state, an in-phase firing state, and a nonfiring resting state. As we construct numerically the deformed torus manifold underlying the chaotic bursting state, it is shown that the three unstable states are connected to give rise to a global chaotic itinerancy structure. Thus we claim that chaotic itinerancy provides an alternative route to chaos via torus breakdown.     

An Approach to Analyse Phase Synchronization in Oscillator Networks with Weak Coupling

We study phase synchronization in oscillator networks through phase reduced method. The dynamics of networks is reduced to phase equations by this method. Analysing the phase equations through the master stability function method, one obtains that the oscillators with identical frequency can be in-phase synchronized by weak balanced coupling. Similarly, the problem of frequency synchronization of oscillators with different frequencies is transformed to the existence of a locally asymptotically stable equilibrium of the phase error system.     

Repulsive synchronization in an array of phase oscillators

We study the dynamics of a repulsively coupled array of phase oscillators. For an array of globally coupled identical oscillators, repulsive coupling results in a family of synchronized regimes characterized by zero mean field. If the number of oscillators is sufficiently large, phase locking among oscillators is destroyed, independently of the coupling strength, when the oscillators' natural frequencies are not the same. In locally coupled networks, however, phase locking occurs even for nonidentical oscillators when the coupling strength is sufficiently strong.     

Synchronization and structure in an adaptive oscillator network

We analyze the interplay of synchronization and structure evolution in an evolving network of phase oscillators. An initially random network is adaptively rewired according to the dynamical coherence of the oscillators, in order to enhance their mutual synchronization. We show that the evolving network reaches a small-world structure. Its clustering coefficient attains a maximum for an intermediate intensity of the coupling between oscillators, where a rich diversity of synchronized oscillator groups is observed. In the stationary state, these synchronized groups are directly associated with network clusters.     

Multiscale dynamics in communities of phase oscillators

We investigate the dynamics of systems of many coupled phase oscillators with heterogeneous frequencies. We suppose that the oscillators occur in M groups. Each oscillator is connected to other oscillators in its group with "attractive" coupling, such that the coupling promotes synchronization within the group. The coupling between oscillators in different groups is "repulsive," i.e., their oscillation phases repel. To address this problem, we reduce the governing equations to a lower-dimensional form via the ansatz of Ott and Antonsen, Chaos 18, 037113 (2008). We first consider the symmetric case where all group parameters are the same, and the attractive and repulsive coupling are also the same for each of the M groups. We find a manifold L of neutrally stable equilibria, and we show that all other equilibria are unstable. For M?≥?3, L has dimension M?-?2, and for M?=?2, it has dimension 1. To address the general asymmetric case, we then introduce small deviations from symmetry in the group and coupling parameters. Doing a slow/fast timescale analysis, we obtain slow time evolution equations for the motion of the M groups on the manifold L. We use these equations to study the dynamics of the groups and compare the results with numerical simulations.     

Resonant response of a thermalized ensemble of nonlinear oscillators

The analysis is carried out of the response of the center of gravity (dipole moment) of the distribution of noninteracting thermalized nonlinear oscillators to a sinusoidal driving force. Heat bath coupling is modeled by damping and noise. The driving is weak, but the frequency is resonant, so that there is a nonlinear resonance in the phase space. The response has a linear part that can be obtained from the perturbation analysis and a small nonlinear correction that is specific for the resonant structure.     

Reconstruction of a random phase dynamics network from observations

We consider networks of coupled phase oscillators of different complexity: Kuramoto–Daido-type networks, generalized Winfree networks, and hypernetworks with triple interactions. For these setups an inverse problem of reconstruction of the network connections and of the coupling function from the observations of the phase dynamics is addressed. We show how a reconstruction based on the minimization of the squared error can be implemented in all these cases. Examples include random networks with full disorder both in the connections and in the coupling functions, as well as networks where the coupling functions are taken from experimental data of electrochemical oscillators. The method can be directly applied to asynchronous dynamics of units, while in the case of synchrony, additional phase resettings are necessary for reconstruction.     

Reconstructing phase dynamics of oscillator networks

We generalize our recent approach to the reconstruction of phase dynamics of coupled oscillators from data [B. Kralemann et al., Phys. Rev. E 77, 066205 (2008)] to cover the case of small networks of coupled periodic units. Starting from a multivariate time series, we first reconstruct genuine phases and then obtain the coupling functions in terms of these phases. Partial norms of these coupling functions quantify directed coupling between oscillators. We illustrate the method by different network motifs for three coupled oscillators and for random networks of five and nine units. We also discuss nonlinear effects in coupling.     

Switching phenomenon induced by breakdown of chaotic phase synchronization

We investigate chaotic phase synchronization (CPS) in three-coupled chaotic oscillator systems. According to the coupling strength and mismatches in the frequencies of these oscillators, we can observe complete CPS where all three oscillators exhibit CPS, and partial CPS where only two oscillators exhibit CPS. When the coupling strength is weakened, we observe a phenomenon that complete CPS among the three oscillators is suddenly disrupted without going through partial CPS. In this case oscillators exhibit quasi-CPS where two oscillators appear to exhibit CPS transiently, and the combination of the two oscillators changes with time. We call this phenomenon CPS switching D. It is revealed that phase fluctuation plays an important role in CPS switching D. It is also shown that the amplitude with a specific structure strengthens the degree of CPS switching. In the present paper, we characterize this CPS switching and discuss its mechanism.     

Two models for josephson oscillators

Two exactly soluble quantum mechanical models for tunneling oscillators are discussed. The first one is a closed weak coupling system, in which the current is nondissipative. In the second, open strong coupling system the oscillation occurs as a reservoir driven phase transition of the first kind far from thermal equilibrium.     

Detecting synchronization in coupled stochastic ecosystem networks

Instantaneous phase difference, synchronization index and mutual information are considered in order to detect phase transitions, collective behaviours and synchronization phenomena that emerge for different levels of diffusive and reactive activity in stochastic networks. The network under investigation is a spatial 2D lattice which serves as a substrate for Lotka-Volterra dynamics with 3rd order nonlinearities. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that the system spontaneously organizes into a number of asynchronous local oscillators, when only nearest neighbour interactions are considered. In contrast, the oscillators can be correlated, phase synchronized and completely synchronized when introducing different interactivity rules (diffusive or reactive) for nearby and distant species. The quantitative measures of synchronization show that long distance diffusion coupling induces phase synchronization after a well defined transition point, while long distance reaction coupling induces smeared phase synchronization.     

Chimeras in random non-complete networks of phase oscillators

We consider the simplest network of coupled non-identical phase oscillators capable of displaying a "chimera" state (namely, two subnetworks with strong coupling within the subnetworks and weaker coupling between them) and systematically investigate the effects of gradually removing connections within the network, in a random but systematically specified way. We average over ensembles of networks with the same random connectivity but different intrinsic oscillator frequencies and derive ordinary differential equations (ODEs), whose fixed points describe a typical chimera state in a representative network of phase oscillators. Following these fixed points as parameters are varied we find that chimera states are quite sensitive to such random removals of connections, and that oscillations of chimera states can be either created or suppressed in apparent bifurcation points, depending on exactly how the connections are gradually removed.     

System size resonance in coupled noisy systems and in the Ising model

We consider an ensemble of coupled nonlinear noisy oscillators demonstrating in the thermodynamic limit an Ising-type transition. In the ordered phase and for finite ensembles stochastic flips of the mean field are observed with the rate depending on the ensemble size. When a small periodic force acts on the ensemble, the linear response of the system has a maximum at a certain system size, similar to the stochastic resonance phenomenon. We demonstrate this effect of system size resonance for different types of noisy oscillators and for different ensembles---lattices with nearest neighbors coupling and globally coupled populations. The Ising model is also shown to demonstrate the system size resonance.     

Entangled chimeras in nonlocally coupled bicomponent phase oscillators: From synchronous to asynchronous chimeras

Chimera states, a symmetry-breaking spatiotemporal pattern in nonlocally coupled identical dynamical units, have been identified in various systems and generalized to coupled nonidentical oscillators. It has been shown that strong heterogeneity in the frequencies of nonidentical oscillators might be harmful to chimera states. In this work, we consider a ring of nonlocally coupled bicomponent phase oscillators in which two types of oscillators are randomly distributed along the ring: some oscillators with natural frequency ω₁ and others with ω₂ . In this model, the heterogeneity in frequency is measured by frequency mismatch |ω₁−ω₂| between the oscillators in these two subpopulations. We report that the nonlocally coupled bicomponent phase oscillators allow for chimera states no matter how large the frequency mismatch is. The bicomponent oscillators are composed of two chimera states, one supported by oscillators with natural frequency ω₁ and the other by oscillators with natural frequency ω₂. The two chimera states in two subpopulations are synchronized at weak frequency mismatch, in which the coherent oscillators in them share similar mean phase velocity, and are desynchronized at large frequency mismatch, in which the coherent oscillators in different subpopulations have distinct mean phase velocities. The synchronization–desynchronization transition between chimera states in these two subpopulations is observed with the increase in the frequency mismatch. The observed phenomena are theoretically analyzed by passing to the continuum limit and using the Ott-Antonsen approach.