Cluster Synchronization of Networks via a Canonical Transformation for Simultaneous Block Diagonalization of Matrices

TL;DR

This paper introduces a canonical transformation method for simultaneous block diagonalization of matrices to analyze cluster synchronization in networks, enabling efficient stability analysis and application to real networks.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel canonical transformation approach that simplifies stability analysis of cluster synchronization by decoupling the problem into minimal subproblems while preserving physical properties.

Findings

Decouples stability analysis into low-dimensional subproblems

Applies to both orbital and equitable partitions

Runs faster than existing algorithms on real networks

Abstract

We study cluster synchronization of networks and propose a canonical transformation for simultaneous block diagonalization of matrices that we use to analyze stability of the cluster synchronous solution. Our approach has several advantages as it allows us to: (1) decouple the stability problem into subproblems of minimal dimensionality while preserving physically meaningful information; (2) study stability of both orbital and equitable partitions of the network nodes and (3) obtain a parametrization of the problem in a small number of parameters. For the last point, we show how the canonical transformation decouples the problem into blocks that preserve key physical properties of the original system. We also apply our proposed algorithm to analyze several real networks of interest, and we find that it runs faster than alternative algorithms from the literature.