Bimodal Synchronization Performance: Why Noise and Sparse Connectivity Can Improve Collective Timing
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866913136344301568 |
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| author | Aust, Till Zhang, Tianfu Reina, Andreagiovanni Hamann, Heiko |
| author_facet | Aust, Till Zhang, Tianfu Reina, Andreagiovanni Hamann, Heiko |
| contents | Pulse-coupled oscillator models inspired by firefly synchronization are widely used to study decentralized time coordination in distributed systems. We analyze a discrete-time, discrete-phase firefly-inspired synchronization model and show that collective synchrony emerges only near a critical balance between the quorum threshold (fraction of pulsing neighbors required to trigger a phase update) and the pulse duration (how long agents remain detectable to others). Within this parameter region, the system exhibits bimodal performance: it either reaches near-perfect synchronization or becomes trapped in stable multi-cluster states, where symmetrically phase-offset subgroups mutually reinforce one another and prevent global synchrony. Our analysis shows that reducing connectivity or introducing noise suppresses these low-performance states by breaking such symmetric interactions, indicating that highly connected or noiseless systems are not necessarily optimal for collective synchronization. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_17206 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Bimodal Synchronization Performance: Why Noise and Sparse Connectivity Can Improve Collective Timing Aust, Till Zhang, Tianfu Reina, Andreagiovanni Hamann, Heiko Multiagent Systems Pulse-coupled oscillator models inspired by firefly synchronization are widely used to study decentralized time coordination in distributed systems. We analyze a discrete-time, discrete-phase firefly-inspired synchronization model and show that collective synchrony emerges only near a critical balance between the quorum threshold (fraction of pulsing neighbors required to trigger a phase update) and the pulse duration (how long agents remain detectable to others). Within this parameter region, the system exhibits bimodal performance: it either reaches near-perfect synchronization or becomes trapped in stable multi-cluster states, where symmetrically phase-offset subgroups mutually reinforce one another and prevent global synchrony. Our analysis shows that reducing connectivity or introducing noise suppresses these low-performance states by breaking such symmetric interactions, indicating that highly connected or noiseless systems are not necessarily optimal for collective synchronization. |
| title | Bimodal Synchronization Performance: Why Noise and Sparse Connectivity Can Improve Collective Timing |
| topic | Multiagent Systems |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.17206 |