Bifurcation analysis and structural stability of simplicial oscillator populations

We present an analytical description for the collective dynamics of oscillator ensembles with higher-order coupling encoded by simplicial structure, which serves as an illustrative and insightful paradigm for brain function and information storage. The novel dynamics of the system, including abrupt desynchronization and multistability, are rigorously characterized and the critical points that correspond to a continuum of first-order phase transitions are found to satisfy universal scaling properties. More importantly, the underlying bifurcation mechanism giving rise to multiple clusters with arbitrary ensemble size is characterized using a rigorous spectral analysis of the stable cluster states. As a consequence of SO2 group symmetry, we show that the continuum of abrupt desynchronization transitions result from the instability of a collective mode under the nontrivial antisymmetric manifold in the high-dimensional phase space.