Synchronization in Small-World Dynamical Networks

We investigate synchronization in a network of continuous-time dynamical systems with small-world connections. The small-world network is obtained by randomly adding a small fraction of connection in an originally nearest-neighbor coupled network. We show that, for any given coupling strength and a sufficiently large number of cells, the small-world dynamical network will synchronize, even if the original nearest-neighbor coupled network cannot achieve synchronization under the same condition.