Stability of Kuramoto networks subject to large and small fluctuations from heterogeneous and spatially correlated noise.

Abstract

Oscillatory networks subjected to noise are broadly used to model physical and technological systems. Due to their nonlinear coupling, such networks typically have multiple stable and unstable states that a network might visit due to noise. In this article, we focus on the assessment of fluctuations resulting from heterogeneous and spatially correlated noise inputs on Kuramoto model networks. We evaluate the typical, small fluctuations near synchronized states and connect the network variance to the overlap between stable modes of synchronization and the input noise covariance. Going beyond small to large fluctuations, we introduce the indicator mode approximation that projects the dynamics onto a single amplitude dimension. Such an approximation allows for estimating rates of fluctuations to saddle instabilities, resulting in phase slips between connected oscillators. Statistics for both regimes are quantified in terms of effective noise amplitudes that are compared and contrasted for several noise models. Bridging the gap between small and large fluctuations, we show that a larger network variance does not necessarily lead to higher rates of large fluctuations.