Abstract
Recent studies have shown that explosive synchronization transitions can be observed in networks of phase oscillators [Gómez-Gardeñes J, Gómez S, Arenas A and Moreno Y 2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 128701] and chaotic oscillators [Leyva I, Sevilla-Escoboza R, Buldú J M, Sendiña-Nadal I, Gómez-Gardeñes J, Arenas A, Moreno Y, Gómez S, Jaimes-Reátegui R and Boccaletti S 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 168702]. Here, we study the effect of different chaotic dynamics on the synchronization transitions in small world networks and scale free networks. The continuous transition is discovered for Rössler systems in both of the above complex networks. However, explosive transitions take place for the coupled Lorenz systems, and the main reason is the abrupt change of dynamics before achieving complete synchronization. Our results show that the explosive synchronization transitions are accompanied by the change of system dynamics.