United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization and International Atomic Energy Agency THE ABDUS SALAM INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS SYNCHRONIZATION OF DIFFUSIVELY COUPLED OSCILLATORS NEAR THE HOMOCLINIC BIFURCATION

It has been known that a diffusive coupling between two limit cycle oscillations typically leads to the inphase synchronization and also that it is the only stable state in the weak coupling limit. Recently, however, it has been shown that the coupling of the same nature can result in the distinctive dephased synchronization when the limit cycles are close to the homoclinic bifurcation, which often occurs especially for the neuronal oscillators. In this paper we propose a simple physical model using the modified van der Pol equation, which unfolds the generic synchronization behaviors of the latter kind and in which one may readily observe changes in the sychronization behaviors between the distinctive regimes as well. The dephasing mechanism is analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively in the weak coupling limit. A general form of coupling is introduced and the synchronization behaviors over a wide range of the coupling parameters are explored to construct the phase diagram using the bifurcation analysis. MIRAMARE TRIESTE September 1998 'Regular Associate of the Abdus Salam ICTP.