A Phase Model with Large Time Delayed Coupling

TL;DR

This paper develops a phase model for two identical oscillators with large time delayed coupling, analyzing the existence, stability, and bifurcations of phase-locked solutions, and validating results with Morris-Lecar oscillators.

Contribution

It introduces an explicit phase model with large delay, providing new stability conditions and bifurcation analysis for coupled oscillators with time delay.

Findings

In-phase and anti-phase solutions always exist for any coupling.

Multiple solutions can occur with large delays, each with different frequencies.

The phase model results agree with numerical simulations of the full delay differential equations.

Abstract

We consider two identical oscillators with weak, time delayed coupling. We start with a general system of delay differential equations then reduce it to a phase model. With the assumption of large time delay, the resulting phase model has an explicit delay and phase shift in the argument of the phases and connection function, respectively. Using the phase model, we prove that for any type of oscillators and any coupling, the in-phase and anti-phase phase-locked solutions always exist and give conditions for their stability. We show that for small delay these solutions are unique, but with large enough delay multiple solutions of each type with different frequencies may occur. We give conditions for the existence and stability of other types of phase-locked solutions. We discuss the various bifurcations that can occur in the phase model as the time delay is varied. The results of the phase model analysis are applied to Morris-Lecar oscillators with diffusive coupling and compared with numerical studies of the full system of delay differential equations. We also consider the case of small time delay and compare the results with the existing ones in the literature.