Kac–Rice fixed point analysis for single- and multi-layered complex systems

Abstract

We present a null model for single- and multi-layered complex systems constructed using homogeneous and isotropic random Gaussian maps. By means of a Kac–Rice formalism, we show that the mean number of fixed points can be calculated as the expectation of the absolute value of the characteristic polynomial for a product of independent Gaussian (Ginibre) matrices. Furthermore, using techniques from random matrix theory, we show that the high-dimensional limit of our system has a third-order phase transition between a phase with a single fixed point and a phase with exponentially many fixed points. This result is universal in the sense that it does not depend on finer details of the correlations for the random maps.