Anticipated synchronization in systems with distributed delay

Abstract: Anticipated synchronisation occurs when a driven dynamical system synchronises with the future state of the driver system to which it is unidirectionally coupled. Previous theoretical and experimental studies have focused on setups with a single delay time in the coupling term, for which exact anticipation can arise as a solution. Here we extend this framework to configurations with distributed delay times. Our main result is that, for a given delay distribution, approximate anticipated synchronisation can emerge over a range of coupling strengths. We analyse this phenomenon analytically for systems of linear oscillators, where we identify simple cases exhibiting exact synchronisation--up to a constant amplitude factor. Numerical simulations of nonlinear chaotic systems reveal stable forms of approximate anticipated synchronisation.