Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 19, 2026

An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
Published on: December 4, 2017
Compact dynamical mean-field theory of oscillator networks
1University of Washington, Department of Applied Mathematics, Seattle, Washington 98195-3925, USA.
None:
We present a compact dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) for large networks of coupled phase oscillators whose phases live on the circle S^{1} and interact with both coherent mean-field coupling and quenched randomness. Starting from wrapped Langevin dynamics, we build a path-integral representation that keeps the 2π periodicity of the phases explicit. After averaging over the disorder in the thermodynamic limit, this construction reduces to a single-oscillator stochastic equation driven by a deterministic mean field and a self-consistent colored Gaussian noise, whose covariance is fixed by a circular two-time correlator. In the limit of vanishing disorder, the formalism reproduces the Ott-Antonsen reduction and recovers standard Kuramoto and theta-neuron neural-mass equations. The same framework accommodates arbitrary 2π-periodic coupling functions, including those obtained from infinitesimal phase response curves (IPRCs) of biophysical neuron models. As an example, we show that for adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire neurons, inserting an IPRC-fitted coupling into the compact DMFT yields quantitative predictions for synchronization thresholds, providing a direct route from single-neuron phase response data to network-level mean-field predictions for arbitrary phase-reducible oscillators.
Related Concept Videos
Forced Oscillations
Damped Oscillations
Although friction and other non-conservative...
Oscillations about an Equilibrium Position
Oscillations In An LC Circuit
One-Degree-of-Freedom System
A one-degree-of-freedom system is defined by an independent variable that determines its state and behavior. One example of a one-degree-of-freedom system is a simple harmonic oscillator, such as a...
RLC Circuit as a Damped Oscillator
Consider a series RLC circuit. Here, the presence of resistance in the circuit leads to energy loss due to joule heating in the resistance. Therefore, the total electromagnetic energy in the circuit is no longer constant and decreases with time. Since the magnitude of charge, current, and potential difference continuously decreases, their oscillations are said to be damped. This is...

