Synchronization measurement based on Poincaré’s sphere

Abstract

Synchronization is an important phenomenon occurring in many complex systems, such as neural networks, power grids, or social networks. Various methods have been proposed to measure synchronization, each with its advantages and limitations. In this work, we introduce the Poincaré sphere as a generalized measure of synchronization, which provides a useful tool to visualize the similarities between oscillations. We propose the notion of “total synchronization,” which considers amplitude, frequency, and phase synchronization, all of which can be measured and visualized simultaneously on the Poincaré sphere. We show that visualizing oscillatory trajectories on the Poincaré sphere has advantages over the more typical two-dimensional representation, particularly in cases where a projection onto a two-dimensional space cannot capture the similarities between different oscillations. Furthermore, we apply this new synchronization measurement to linear and nonlinear oscillators and provide two concrete examples of its application in visualizing phase jitter in noisy oscillations and quantizing solutions of oscillator-based Ising machines. Our work demonstrates the usefulness of the Poincaré sphere as a generalized measure of synchronization and provides a new perspective on studying synchronization in complex systems.