Kuramoto model simulations of dynamic system states as functions of coupling strength between oscillators.

<p>When the coupling strength has critical value , the system is metastable and demonstrates the greatest fluctuations in the mean field and in the number of synchronized pairs. Top panel: change of effective frequencies of oscillators (black lines) with coupling strength (equivalent to natural frequencies for low ). Vertically symmetric red bands indicate range over time of effective mean-field coupling strength . Natural frequencies lower than synchronize with the mean frequency , leading to variations in fraction of synchronized pairs subject to fluctuating mean-field strength . Bottom panel: dependence on coupling strength of time averaged order parameter (black circles), and of fraction of synchronized oscillators (red circles) with standard deviation indicated by error bars in gray. The open black symbols and green curve show fluctuation amplitudes of and , respectively.