Synchrony of limit-cycle oscillators induced by random external impulses

Abstract

The mechanism of phase synchronization between uncoupled limit-cycle oscillators induced by common external impulsive forcing is analyzed. By reducing the dynamics of the oscillator to a random phase map, it is shown that phase synchronization generally occurs when the oscillator is driven by weak external impulses in the limit of large inter-impulse intervals. The case where the inter-impulse intervals are finite is also analyzed perturbatively for small impulse intensity. For weak Poissonian impulses, it is shown that the phase synchronization persists up to the first order approximation.