Critical parameters of the synchronisation’s stability for coupled maps in regular graphs

Coupled Map Lattice (CML) models are particularly suitable to study spatially extended behaviours, such as wave-like patterns, spatio-temporal chaos, and synchronisation. Complete synchronisation in CMLs emerges when all maps have their state variables with equal magnitude, forming a spatially uniform pattern that evolves in time. Here, we derive critical values for the parameters – coupling strength, maximum Lyapunov exponent, and link density – that control the synchronisation-manifold’s linear stability of diffusively-coupled, identical, chaotic maps in generic regular graphs (i.e., graphs with uniform node degrees) and class-specific cyclic graphs (i.e., periodic lattices with cyclical node permutation symmetries). Our derivations are based on the Laplacian matrix eigenvalues, where we give closed-form expressions for the smallest non-zero eigenvalue and largest eigenvalue of regular graphs and show that these graphs can be classified into two sets according to a topological condition (derived from the stability analysis). We also make derivations for two classes of cyclic graph: k-cycles (i.e., regular lattices of even degree k, which can be embedded in Tk tori) and k-Möbius ladders, which we introduce here to generalise the Möbius ladder of degree k = 3. Our results highlight differences in the synchronisation manifold’s stability of these graphs – even for identical node degrees – in the finite size and infinite size limit.