Explosive synchronization and chimera in interpinned multilayer networks

TL;DR

This paper explores how random interlayer pinning in multilayer networks can induce explosive synchronization and chimera states, with theoretical analysis confirming these phenomena.

Contribution

It demonstrates that interlayer pinning causes explosive synchronization and chimera states in multilayer networks, a novel insight into multilayer network dynamics.

Findings

Explosive synchronization occurs successively in multilayer networks.

Chimera states coexist with synchronized states due to interlayer pinning.

Theoretical mean-field analysis supports the observed phenomena.

Abstract

This Letter investigates the nature of synchronization in multilayered and multiplexed populations in which the interlayer interactions are randomly pinned. First, we show that a multilayer network constructed by setting up all-to-all interlayer connections between the two populations leads to explosive synchronization in the two populations successively, leading to the coexistence of coherent and incoherent populations forming chimera states. Second, a multiplex formation of the two populations in which only the mirror nodes are interconnected espouses explosive transitions in the two populations concurrently. The occurrence of both explosive synchronization and chimera are substantiated with rigorous theoretical mean-field analysis. The random pinning in the interlayer interactions concerns the practical problems where the impact of dynamics of one network on that of other interconnected networks remains elusive, as is the case for many real-world systems.