Effects of frequency-degree correlation on synchronization transition in scale-free networks

Explosive synchronization in the scale-free network with a positive frequency-degree correlation has been reported recently (Gomez G. J. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 106 (2011) 128701). In this article, we generalize this study and find that the explosive synchronization is replaced by a kind of hierarchical synchronization if the microscopic correlation between the frequency and the interacting topology of the network becomes negative. A star network model is set to prove this novel behavior. We also find that the degree assortativity has significant influence on the explosive synchronization but slight impact on the hierarchical synchronization. These findings are meaningful for revealing unusual effects of correlations between dynamics and structure of complex networks.