Synchronization in coupled arrays of chaotic oscillators with nonreciprocal coupling

Abstract

There are, in general, two classes of results regarding the synchronization of chaos in an array of coupled identical chaotic systems. The first class of results relies on Lyapunov's direct method and gives analytical criteria for global or local synchronization. The second class of results relies on linearization around the synchronization manifold and the computation of Lyapunov exponents. The computation of Lyapunov exponents is mainly done via numerical experiments and can only show local synchronization in the neighborhood of the synchronization manifold. On the other hand, Lyapunov's direct method is more rigorous and can give global results. The coupling topology is generally expressed in matrix form and the first class of methods mainly deals with symmetric matrices whereas the second class of methods can work with all diagonalizable matrices. The purpose of this brief is to bridge the gap in the applicability of the two classes of methods by considering the nonsymmetric case for the first class of methods. We derive a synchronization criterion for nonreciprocal coupling related to a numerical quantity that depends on the coupling topology and we present methods for computing this quantity.