Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 14: Focus: The Physics of Power-Grids – Fluctuations, Synchronization and Network Structures (joint session DY / SOE)

SOE 14.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 15:00–15:30, ZEU 160

Asymmetry-Induced Synchronization Stability in Power-Grid Networks — •Adilson Motter — Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Synchronization is a paradigm for behavioral uniformity that can emerge from interactions and a necessary condition for the operation of coupled generators in power-grid networks. When the interacting entities are identical and their coupling patterns are also identical, the complete synchronization of the entire network is the state inheriting the system symmetry. As in other systems subject to symmetry breaking, such symmetric states are not always stable. Here, I will discuss the discovery of the converse of symmetry breaking---the scenario in which complete synchronization is not stable for identically coupled identical oscillators but becomes stable when, and only when, the oscillator parameters are judiciously tuned to nonidentical values. This corresponds to breaking the symmetry of the system to preserve the symmetry of the state. I will discuss how this implies that heterogeneity of dynamical units can facilitate and even be required for the stability of synchronous states in power grids and other oscillator networks. (Joint work with Takashi Nishikawa and Ferenc Molnar.)