Network Dynamics with Higher-Order Interactions: Coupled Cell Hypernetworks for Identical Cells and Synchrony

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formalism for analyzing synchronization patterns in networks with higher-order interactions, using hypernetworks and hypergraphs to understand stability and structure.

Contribution

It develops a coupled cell hypernetwork framework to identify and analyze synchrony subspaces in systems with complex, higher-order interactions.

Findings

Defined robust synchrony subspaces for hypernetworks.

Linked hypernetwork synchrony to balanced colorings of incidence digraphs.

Provided a method to analyze stability of synchronization patterns.

Abstract

Network interactions that are nonlinear in the state of more than two nodes - also known as higher-order interactions - can have a profound impact on the collective network dynamics. Here we develop a coupled cell hypernetwork formalism to elucidate the existence and stability of (cluster) synchronization patterns in network dynamical systems with higher-order interactions. More specifically, we define robust synchrony subspace for coupled cell hypernetworks whose coupling structure is determined by an underlying hypergraph and describe those spaces for general such hypernetworks. Since a hypergraph can be equivalently represented as a bipartite graph between its nodes and hyperedges, we relate the synchrony subspaces of a hypernetwork to balanced colorings of the corresponding incidence digraph.