Ariaratnam J T, Strogatz S H
Center for Applied Mathematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2001 May 7;86(19):4278-81. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.4278.
In 1967 Winfree proposed a mean-field model for the spontaneous synchronization of chorusing crickets, flashing fireflies, circadian pacemaker cells, or other large populations of biological oscillators. Here we give the first bifurcation analysis of the model, for a tractable special case. The system displays rich collective dynamics as a function of the coupling strength and the spread of natural frequencies. Besides incoherence, frequency locking, and oscillator death, there exist hybrid solutions that combine two or more of these states. We present the phase diagram and derive several of the stability boundaries analytically.
