Phase synchronization and topological defects in inhomogeneous media

Abstract

The influence of topological defects on phase synchronization and phase coherence in two-dimensional arrays of locally-coupled, nonidentical, chaotic oscillators is investigated. The motion of topological defects leads to a breakdown of phase synchronization in the vicinities of the defects; however, the system is much more phase coherent as long as the coupling between the oscillators is strong enough to prohibit the continuous dynamical creation and annihilation of defects. The generic occurrence of topological defects in two and higher dimensions implies that the concept of phase synchronization has to be modified for these systems.

5 pages, 5 figures, revtex4

References in corpus (1)

• The World of the Complex Ginzburg-Landau Equation

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Describing synchronization and topological excitations in arrays of magnetic spin torque oscillators through the Kuramoto model
• Vortices and the entrainment transition in the 2D Kuramoto model
• Rapid convergence of time-averaged frequency in phase synchronized systems
• A geometric framework for phase synchronization in coupled noisy nonlinear systems