Target Patterns in a 2-D Array of Oscillators with Nonlocal Coupling

Abstract

We analyze the effect of adding a weak, localized, inhomogeneity to a two dimensional array of oscillators with nonlocal coupling. We propose and also justify a model for the phase dynamics in this system. Our model is a generalization of a viscous eikonal equation that is known to describe the phase modulation of traveling waves in reaction-diffusion systems. We show the existence of a branch of target pattern solutions that bifurcates from the spatially homogeneous state when $\varepsilon$, the strength of the inhomogeneity, is nonzero and we also show that these target patterns have an asymptotic wavenumber that is small beyond all orders in $\varepsilon$. The strategy of our proof is to pose a good ansatz for an approximate form of the solution and use the implicit function theorem to prove the existence of a solution in its vicinity. The analysis presents two challenges. First, the linearization about the homogeneous state is a convolution operator of diffusive type and hence not invertible on the usual Sobolev spaces. Second, a regular perturbation expansion in $\varepsilon$ does not provide a good ansatz for applying the implicit function theorem since the nonlinearities play a major role in determining the relevant approximation, which also needs to be "correct" to all orders in $\varepsilon$. We overcome these two points by proving Fredholm properties for the linearization in appropriate Kondratiev spaces and using a refined ansatz for the approximate solution, which obtained using matched asymptotics.