Synchronization in temporal simplicial complexes

Abstract: The stability analysis of synchronization in time-varying higher-order networked structures (simplicial complexes) is one of the challenging problem due to the presence of time-varying group interactions. In this context, most of the previous studies have been done either on temporal pairwise networks or on static simplicial complexes. Here, for the first time, we propose a general framework to study the synchronization phenomenon in temporal simplicial complexes. We show that the synchronous state exists as an invariant solution and obtain the necessary condition for it to be emerged as a stable state in fast switching regime. We prove that the time-averaged simplicial complex plays the role of synchronization indicator whenever the switching among simplicial topologies are adequately fast. We attempt to transform the stability problem into a master stability function form. Unfortunately, for the general circumstances, the dimension reduction of the master stability equation is cumbersome due to the presence of group interactions. However, we overcome this difficulty in two interesting situations based on either the functional forms of the coupling schemes or the connectivity structure of the simplicial complex, and demonstrate that the necessary condition mimics the form of a master stability function in these cases. We verify our analytical findings by applying them on synthetic and real-world networked systems. In addition, our results also reveal that with sufficient higher-order coupling and adequately fast rewiring, the temporal simplicial complex achieves synchrony even in a very low connectivity regime.