Kuramoto Oscillators on Chains, Rings and Cayley-trees

Abstract

We study systems of Kuramoto oscillators, driven by one pacemaker, on $d$-dimensional regular topologies like linear chains, rings, hypercubic lattices and Cayley-trees. For the special cases of next-neighbor and infinite-range interactions, we derive the analytical expressions for the common frequency in the case of phase-locked motion and for the critical frequency of the pacemaker, placed at an arbitrary position on the lattice, so that above the critical frequency no phase-locked motion is possible. These expressions depend on the number of oscillators, the type of coupling, the coupling strength, and the range of interactions. In particular we show that the mere change in topology from an open chain with free boundary conditions to a ring induces synchronization for a certain range of pacemaker frequencies and couplings, keeping the other parameters fixed. We also study numerically the phase evolution above the critical eigenfrequency of the pacemaker for arbitrary interaction ranges and find some interesting remnants to phase-locked motion below the critical frequency.