Chaos in Kuramoto oscillator networks

Abstract: Kuramoto oscillators are widely used to explain collective phenomena in networks of coupled oscillatory units. We show that simple networks of two populations with a generic coupling scheme, where both coupling strengths and phase lags between and within populations are distinct, can exhibit chaotic dynamics as conjectured by Ott and Antonsen [Chaos, 18, 037113 (2008)]. These chaotic mean-field dynamics arise universally across network size, from the continuum limit of infinitely many oscillators down to very small networks with just two oscillators per population. Hence, complicated dynamics are expected even in the simplest description of oscillator networks.