Spontaneous synchronization and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of coupled phase oscillators

TL;DR

This paper reviews the Kuramoto model of spontaneous synchronization, extending it to include inertial effects and noise, and analyzes its complex phase behavior using statistical physics tools.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Kuramoto model with inertial and stochastic effects and explores its nonequilibrium phase diagram using statistical physics methods.

Findings

Rich phase diagram with multiple phases

Emergent phenomena in long-range interacting systems

Nonequilibrium dynamics driven by external torques

Abstract

Spontaneous synchronization is a remarkable collective effect observed in nature, whereby a population of oscillating units, which have diverse natural frequencies and are in weak interaction with one another, evolves to spontaneously exhibit collective oscillations at a common frequency. The Kuramoto model provides the basic analytical framework to study spontaneous synchronization. The model comprises limit-cycle oscillators with distributed natural frequencies interacting through a mean-field coupling. Although more than forty years have passed since its introduction, the model continues to occupy the centre-stage of research in the field of non-linear dynamics, and is also widely applied to model diverse physical situations. In this brief review, starting with a derivation of the Kuramoto model and the synchronization phenomenon it exhibits, we summarize recent results on the study of a generalized Kuramoto model that includes inertial effects and stochastic noise. We describe the dynamics of the generalized model from a different yet a rather useful perspective, namely, that of long-range interacting systems driven out of equilibrium by quenched disordered external torques. A system is said to be long-range interacting if the inter-particle potential decays slowly as a function of distance. Using tools of statistical physics, we highlight the equilibrium and nonequilibrium aspects of the dynamics of the generalized Kuramoto model, and uncover a rather rich and complex phase diagram that it exhibits, which underlines the basic theme of intriguing emergent phenomena that are exhibited by many-body complex systems.