Noise-induced Synchronization in Small World Network of Phase Oscillators

A small-world network (SW) of similar phase oscillators, interacting according to the Kuramoto model is studied numerically. It is shown that deterministic Kuramoto dynamics on the SW networks has various stable stationary states. This can be attributed to the "defect patterns" in a SW network which is inherited to it from deformation of "helical patterns" in its parent regular one. Turning on an uncorrelated random force, causes the vanishing of the defect patterns, hence increasing the synchronization among oscillators for intermediate noise intensities. This phenomenon which is called "stochastic synchronization" generally observed in some natural networks like brain neuronal network.