Exponential stability criterion for chaos synchronization in modulated time-delayed systems (Q708525)

The following coupled system of delay differential equations is considered: \[ x'(t)=-ax(t)+m\sin(x(t-\tau)),\quad y'(t)=-ay(t)+m\sin(y(t-\tau))+k(x(t)-y(t)) \] with time dependent delay \(\tau=a_{0}+a_{1}\sin\omega_{1}t\). This system has the invariant synchronization subspace \(x=y\). The authors study local stability of this subspace by linearizing the system for \(\Delta=x-y\) and applying the Krasovskii-Lyapunov functional to the obtained linear system. More specifically, sufficient conditions for the exponential stability \(\|\Delta(t)\|_{C[0,\tau]}\leq\mathrm{const}\cdot e^{-\alpha t}\) (\(\alpha>0\)) are obtained.