Dynamical phase diagram of synchronization in one dimension: universal behavior from Edwards-Wilkinson to random deposition through Kardar-Parisi-Zhang

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universal scaling behavior of synchronization in one-dimensional oscillators, revealing a crossover from Edwards-Wilkinson to KPZ universality classes influenced by randomness and coupling properties.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive numerical phase diagrams and insights into the dynamical emergence of synchronization, connecting surface growth models with oscillator synchronization phenomena.

Findings

Synchronization exhibits universal scale invariance linked to surface kinetic roughening.

A crossover from Edwards-Wilkinson to KPZ behavior occurs with increasing randomness or nonodd coupling.

Distortions near the desynchronization boundary involve phase slips affecting scaling.

Abstract

Synchronization in one dimension displays generic scale invariance with universal properties previously observed in surface kinetic roughening and the wider context of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class. This has been established for phase oscillators and also for some limit-cycle oscillators, both in the presence of columnar (quenched) disorder and of time-dependent noise, by extensive numerical simulations, and has been analytically motivated by continuum approximations in the strong oscillator coupling limit. The robustness and the precise boundaries in parameter space for such critical behavior remain unclear, however, which may preclude further developments, including the extension of these results to higher dimensions and the experimental observation of nonequilibrium criticality in synchronizing (e.g.~electronic or chemical) oscillators. We here present complete numerical phase diagrams of one-dimensional synchronization, including saturation times and values, but, most importantly, also dynamical features giving insight into the gradual emergence of synchronous dynamics, based on systems of phase oscillators with either type of randomness. In the absence of synchronization, the dynamics evolves as expected for random deposition (for time-dependent noise) or linear growth (for columnar disorder), while a crossover from Edwards-Wilkinson to Kardar-Parisi-Zhang behavior (with the corresponding type of randomness) is observed as the randomness strength, or the nonoddity of the coupling among oscillators, is increased in the synchronous region -- their combined effect being partially captured by the so-called KPZ coupling. The distortion of scaling due to phase slips near the desynchronization boundary, a feature that is likely to play a role in experimental contexts, is also discussed.