Nonresonant entrainment of detuned oscillators induced by common external noise

Abstract

We have found that a novel type of entrainment occurs in two nonidentical limit cycle oscillators subjected to a common external white Gaussian noise. This entrainment is anomalous in the sense that the two oscillators have different mean frequencies, where the difference is constant as the noise intensity increases, but their phases come to be locked for almost all the time. We present a theory and numerical evidence for this phenomenon.