Robustness to noise in synchronization of complex networks

Abstract

In this report, we investigate dynamical robustness of a complex network to noise injected through one of its nodes. We focus on synchronization of coupled nonlinear systems and, as a special instance, we address the classical consensus protocol for linear integrators. We establish an exact closed-form expression of the synchronization error for the consensus protocol and an approximate result for chaotic units. While structural robustness is known to be significantly affected by attacks targeted to network hubs, our results posit that dynamical robustness is controlled by both the topology of the network and the dynamics of the units. We provide examples where hubs perform better or worse than isolated nodes.