Continuum Limits of Coupled Oscillator Networks Depending on Multiple Sparse Graphs

Abstract

The continuum limit provides a useful tool for analyzing coupled oscillator networks. Recently, Medvedev (Commun Math Sci 17(4):883–898, 2019) gave a mathematical foundation for such an approach when the networks are defined on single graphs which may be dense or sparse, directed or undirected, and deterministic or random. In this paper, we consider coupled oscillator networks depending on multiple graphs, and extend his results to show that the continuum limit is also valid in this situation. Specifically, we prove that the initial value problem (IVP) of the corresponding continuum limit has a unique solution under general conditions and that the solution becomes the limit of those to the IVP of the networks in some adequate meaning. Moreover, we show that if solutions to the networks are stable or asymptotically stable when the node number is sufficiently large, then so are the corresponding solutions to the continuum limit, and that if solutions to the continuum limit are asymptotically stable, then so are the corresponding solutions to the networks in some weak meaning as the node number tends to infinity. These results can also be applied to coupled oscillator networks with multiple frequencies by regarding the frequencies as a weight matrix of another graph. We illustrate the theory for three variants of the Kuramoto model along with numerical simulations.