Maximizing Coherence of Oscillations by External Locking.

We study how coherence of noisy oscillations can be optimally enhanced by external locking. Based on the condition of minimizing the phase diffusion constant, we find the optimal forcing explicitly in the limits of small and large noise, in dependence of the phase sensitivity of the oscillator. We show analytically that the form of the optimal force bifurcates with the noise intensity; this is confirmed by the analysis of an optimal locking forcing for an experimentally obtained phase sensitivity of a neural cell. In the limit of small noise, the results are compared with purely deterministic conditions of optimal locking.