Clustering versus non-clustering phase synchronizations.

Clustering phase synchronization (CPS) is a common scenario to the global phase synchronization of coupled dynamical systems. In this work, a novel scenario, the non-clustering phase synchronization (NPS), is reported. It is found that coupled systems do not transit to the global synchronization until a certain sufficiently large coupling is attained, and there is no clustering prior to the global synchronization. To reveal the relationship between CPS and NPS, we further analyze the noise effect on coupled phase oscillators and find that the coupled oscillator system can change from CPS to NPS with the increase of noise intensity or system disorder. These findings are expected to shed light on the mechanism of various intriguing self-organized behaviors in coupled systems.