Determination of a coupling function in multicoupled oscillators.

A new method to determine a coupling function in a phase model is theoretically derived for coupled self-sustained oscillators and applied to Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) oscillators. The synchronous behavior of two coupled BZ reactors is explained extremely well in terms of the coupling function thus obtained. This method is expected to be applicable to weakly coupled multioscillator systems, in which mutual coupling among nearly identical oscillators occurs in a similar manner. The importance of higher-order harmonic terms involved in the coupling function is also discussed.