A theory for detecting the Turing instability on static and temporal multiplex networks

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to introduce and discuss a general framework for performing a linear instability analysis on multiplex networks, in the absence of inter-layer diffusion, with the specific motivation of detecting the Turing instability. The formalism itself is presented in full generality for $m$-unknowns, each of which arise as solutions of non-autonomous reaction-diffusion equations, on $n$-node temporal multiplex networks. In addition, we identify a class of multiplex networks for which the Laplacian matrices commute. In this setting analytical progress can be made and the explicit inequalities, governing instability, are derived. In order to explore our formalism we apply it to the specific example of a two-species predator-prey model on archipelagos. Here nodes are interpreted as islands and edges correspond to the transportation network for each species. Moreover, the non-autonomous setting is used to model a variety of natural phenomena.