Phase-locked regimes in delay-coupled oscillator networks

Abstract

For an ensemble of globally coupled oscillators with time-delayed interactions, an explicit relation for the frequency of synchronized dynamics corresponding to different phase behaviors is obtained. One class of solutions corresponds to globally synchronized in-phase oscillations. The other class of solutions have mixed phases, and these can be either randomly distributed or can be a splay state, namely with phases distributed uniformly on a circle. In the strong coupling limit and for larger networks, the in-phase synchronized configuration alone remains. Upon variation of the coupling strength or the size of the system, the frequency can change discontinuously, when there is a transition from one class of solutions to another. This can be from the in-phase state to a mixed-phase state, but can also occur between two in-phase configurations of different frequency. Analytical and numerical results are presented for coupled Landau–Stuart oscillators, while numerical results are shown for Rössler and FitzHugh-Nagumo systems.