title: Interaction Control to Synchronize Non-synchronizable Networks.
abstract: Synchronization constitutes one of the most fundamental collective dynamics across networked systems and often underlies their function. Whether a system may synchronize depends on the internal unit dynamics as well as the topology and strength of their interactions. For chaotic units with certain interaction topologies synchronization might be impossible across all interaction strengths, meaning that these networks are non-synchronizable. Here we propose the concept of interaction control, generalizing transient uncoupling, to induce desired collective dynamics in complex networks and apply it to synchronize even such non-synchronizable systems. After highlighting that non-synchronizability prevails for a wide range of networks of arbitrary size, we explain how a simple binary control may localize interactions in state space and thereby synchronize networks. Intriguingly, localizing interactions by a fixed control scheme enables stable synchronization across all connected networks regardless of topological constraints. Interaction control may thus ease the design of desired collective dynamics even without knowledge of the networks' exact interaction topology and consequently have implications for biological and self-organizing technical systems.
authors.affiliation: Network Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Malte
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schröder
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, U.P. 208016, India.
authors.forename: Sagar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chakraborty
authors.affiliation: Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institute for Energy and Climate Research - Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation (IEK-STE), 52428 Jülich, Germany.|Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, 50937 Köln, Germany.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Witthaut
authors.affiliation: Computational Physics, IfB, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nagler
authors.affiliation: Network Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPIDS), 37077 Göttingen, Germany.|Department of Physics, Technical University of Darmstadt, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Timme