Coherent regimes of globally coupled dynamical systems

This Letter presents a method by which the mean field dynamics of a population of dynamical systems with parameter diversity and global coupling can be described in terms of a few macroscopic degrees of freedom. The method applies to populations of any size and functional form in the region of coherence. It requires linear variation or a narrow distribution for the dispersed parameter. Although an approximation, the method allows us to quantitatively study the transitions among the collective regimes as bifurcations of the effective macroscopic degrees of freedom. To illustrate, the phenomenon of oscillator death and the route to full locking are examined for chaotic oscillators with time scale mismatch.