Universal resonancelike emergence of chaos in complex networks of damped-driven nonlinear systems

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theory explaining how chaos emerges and persists in complex networks of damped-driven nonlinear oscillators, especially in weak-coupling regimes, with implications across various scientific fields.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical framework and models that elucidate the physical mechanisms behind chaos emergence and suppression in complex oscillator networks.

Findings

Chaos can emerge in weakly coupled nonlinear oscillator networks.

Heterogeneity and impulses influence chaos emergence and suppression.

The theory applies to starlike and scale-free network topologies.

Abstract

Characterizing the emergence of chaotic dynamics of complex networks is an essential task in nonlinear science with potential important applications in many fields such as neural control engineering, microgrid technologies, and ecological networks. Here, we solve a critical outstanding problem in this multidisciplinary research field: The emergence and persistence of spatio-temporal chaos in complex networks of damped-driven nonlinear oscillators in the significant weak-coupling regime, while they exhibit regular behavior when uncoupled. By developing a comprehensive theory with the aid of standard analytical methods, a hierarchy of lower-dimensional effective models, and extensive numerical simulations, we uncover and characterize the basic physical mechanisms concerning both heterogeneity-induced and impulse-induced emergence, enhancement, and suppression of chaos in starlike and scale-free networks of periodically driven, dissipative nonlinear oscillators.