Delay-coupled discrete maps: Synchronization, bistability, and quasiperiodicity

The synchronization transition is studied in delay-coupled logistic maps. For low coupling, in-phase and out-of-phase synchronous dynamics coexist, and with increasing coupling there is a regime of quasiperiodicity before eventual attraction to a fixed point at a critical value of coupling that depends on the nonlinearity. The presence of a region of asynchrony separating two synchronized regimes—termed anomalous behaviour—has been observed earlier in continuous systems and is shown here to occur in delay mappings as well. There are regions of in-phase, anti-phase, and out-of-phase dynamics of periodic as well as chaotic attractors.