Synchronizability of directed networks: The power of non-existent ties

The understanding of how synchronization in directed networks is influenced by structural changes in network topology is far from complete. While the addition of an edge always promotes synchronization in a wide class of undirected networks, this addition may impede synchronization in directed networks. In this paper, we develop the augmented graph stability method, which allows for explicitly connecting the stability of synchronization to changes in network topology. The transformation of a directed network into a symmetrized-and-augmented undirected network is the central component of this new method. This transformation is executed by symmetrizing and weighting the underlying connection graph and adding new undirected edges with consideration made for the mean degree imbalance of each pair of nodes. These new edges represent "non-existent ties" in the original directed network and often control the location of critical nodes whose directed connections can be altered to manipulate the stability of synchronization in a desired way. In particular, we show that the addition of small-world shortcuts to directed networks, which makes "non-existent ties" disappear, can worsen the synchronizability, thereby revealing a destructive role of small-world connections in directed networks. An extension of our method may open the door to studying synchronization in directed multilayer networks, which cannot be effectively handled by the eigenvalue-based methods.