Synchronization on small-world networks

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2002 Feb;65(2 Pt 2):026139. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.65.026139. Epub 2002 Jan 24.

Abstract

We investigate collective synchronization in a system of coupled oscillators on small-world networks. The order parameters that measure synchronization of phases and frequencies are introduced and analyzed by means of dynamic simulations and finite-size scaling. Phase synchronization is observed to emerge in the presence of even a tiny fraction P of shortcuts and to display saturated behavior for P > or similar to 0.5. This indicates that the same synchronizability as the random network (P=1) can be achieved with relatively small number of shortcuts. The transient behavior of the synchronization, obtained from the measurement of the relaxation time, is also discussed.