Universal critical behavior of noisy coupled oscillators: A renormalization group study

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universal critical behavior of noisy coupled oscillators near a synchronization transition using renormalization group methods, revealing connections to equilibrium critical phenomena and violations of fluctuation-dissipation relations.

Contribution

It develops a novel RG scheme to analyze the critical point of coupled oscillators, linking their behavior to the well-understood model A dynamics of the Ginzburg-Landau theory.

Findings

Critical exponents match those of equilibrium O(2) symmetric models.

Universal divergence of an effective temperature indicates strong fluctuation-dissipation violation.

Long-range phase order is possible above two dimensions in critical oscillators.

Abstract

We show that the synchronization transition of a large number of noisy coupled oscillators is an example for a dynamic critical point far from thermodynamic equilibrium. The universal behaviors of such critical oscillators, arranged on a lattice in a $d$-dimensional space and coupled by nearest neighbors interactions, can be studied using field theoretical methods. The field theory associated with the critical point of a homogeneous oscillatory instability (or Hopf bifurcation of coupled oscillators) is the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with additive noise. We perform a perturbative renormalization group (RG) study in a $4-\epsilon$ dimensional space. We develop an RG scheme that eliminates the phase and frequency of the oscillations using a scale-dependent oscillating reference frame. Within a Callan-Symanzik RG scheme to two-loop order in perturbation theory, we find that the RG fixed point is formally related to the one of the model $A$ dynamics of the real Ginzburg-Landau theory with an O(2) symmetry of the order parameter. Therefore, the dominant critical exponents for coupled oscillators are the same as for this equilibrium field theory. This formal connection with an equilibrium critical point imposes a relation between the correlation and response functions of coupled oscillators in the critical regime. Since the system operates far from thermodynamic equilibrium, a strong violation of the fluctuation-dissipation relation occurs and is characterized by a universal divergence of an effective temperature. The formal relation between critical oscillators and equilibrium critical points suggests that long-range phase order exists in critical oscillators above two dimensions.