Analytic Determination of the Critical Coupling for Oscillators in a Ring

Abstract

We study a model of coupled oscillators with bidirectional first nearest neighbours coupling with periodic boundary conditions. We show that a stable phase-locked solution is decided by the oscillators at the borders between the major clusters, which merge to form a larger one of all oscillators at the stage of complete synchronization. We are able to locate these four oscillators as well as the size of major clusters in the vicinity of the stage of full synchronization which we show to depend only on the set of initial frequencies. Using the method presented here, we are able to obtain an analytic form of the critical coupling, at which the complete synchronization state occurs.