Stabilizing oscillation death by multicomponent coupling with mismatched delays

The dynamics of a symmetric network of oscillators that are mutually coupled via multiple dynamical components with mismatched delays is studied. We find that networked oscillators experience oscillation death (OD) over a much larger domain of parameters when their different dynamical components are linked with mismatched delays than with only one delay. In particular, if the delays are mismatched by retaining a certain bias, OD is proved to be linearly stable even for very large delays for an arbitrary symmetric network. Further, we show that the minimal value of the intrinsic frequency necessary to induce OD decreases as the degree of mismatch in the coupling delays increases. The stabilizing effect of multicomponent coupling with mismatched delays is shown to be valid in networked chaotic oscillators also. The proposed coupling strategy can possibly be applied in controlling several pathological activities in neuronal systems and in engineering applications.