Abstract
We study the chaotic behavior of the synchronization phase transition in the Kuramoto model. We discuss the relationship with analogous features found in the Hamiltonian mean-field (HMF) model. Our numerical results support the connection between the two models, which can be considered as limiting cases (dissipative and conservative, respectively) of a more general dynamical system of damped/driven coupled pendula. We also show that, in the Kuramoto model, the shape of the phase transition and the largest Lyapunov exponent behavior are strongly dependent on the distribution of the natural frequencies.