Existence and stability of travelling wave states in a ring of non-locally coupled phase oscillators with propagation delays

Abstract

We investigate the existence and stability of travelling wave solutions in a continuum field of non-locally coupled identical phase oscillators with distance-dependent propagation delays. A comprehensive stability diagram in the parametric space of the system is presented that shows a rich structure of multi-stable regions and illuminates the relative influences of time delay, the non-locality parameter and the intrinsic oscillator frequency on the dynamics of these states. A decrease in the intrinsic oscillator frequency leads to a break-up of the stability domains of the traveling waves into disconnected regions in the parametric space. These regions exhibit a tongue structure for high connectivity whereas they submerge into the stable region of the synchronous state for low connectivity. A novel finding is the existence of forbidden regions in the parametric space where no phase-locked solutions are possible. We also discover a new class of non-stationary \textit{breather} states for this model system that are characterized by periodic oscillations of the complex order parameter.