The behavior of rings of coupled oscillators (Q1069452)

The author examines rings of coupled oscillators in several different contexts. He explains some of the possible synchronized patterns that occur in nearest neighbor coupling of oscillator rings as well as in long range coupling. He presents also an analysis of weak coupling in the presence of a Hopf bifurcation for nearest neighbor interactions. The author obtains results which generalize those of Rand and Holmes [see e.g. \textit{R. H. Rand} and \textit{P. J. Holmes}, Int. J. Non-linear Mech. 15, 387-399 (1980; Zbl 0447.70028)]. He finds waves of activity in the ring and the stability of these is shown. Results are obtained on existence and forms of periodic solutions for \textit{D. A. Linken}'s [Bull. math. Biology 39, 359-372 (1977; Zbl 0354.92015)] inductively coupled van der Pol model. General long range coupling on rings of identical oscillators is analysed. Dispersion relations, stability and various waves are described. For certain types of oscillators, it is shown that ''lateral inhibition'' allows only a band of stable waves to occur. The effect of gradient of frequencies on a ring of nearest-neighbor coupled oscillators is examined. An approximate solution is compared with a numerical solution.