Concurrent formation of nearly synchronous clusters in each intertwined cluster set with parameter mismatches

Abstract: Cluster synchronization is a phenomenon in which oscillators in a given network are partitioned into synchronous clusters. As recently shown, diverse cluster synchronization patterns can be found using network symmetry when the oscillators are identical. For such symmetry-induced cluster synchronization patterns, subsets called intertwined clusters can exist, in which every cluster in the same subset should synchronize or desynchronize concurrently. In this work, to reflect the existence of noise in real systems, we consider networks composed of nearly identical oscillators. We show that every cluster in the same intertwined cluster set is nearly synchronized concurrently when the nearly synchronous state of the set is stable. We also consider an extreme case where only one cluster of an intertwined cluster set is composed of nearly identical oscillators while every other cluster in the set is composed of identical oscillators. In this case, deviation from the synchronous state of every cluster in the same set increases linearly with the magnitude of parameter mismatch within the cluster of nearly identical oscillators. We confirm these results by numerical simulation.