Waves and patterns in ring lattices with delays

We investigate the existence and the stability of waves and phase locked states in rings of coupled oscillators with delayed interactions. Using center manifold reduction and the normal form method, we reduce the equation governing the dynamics of the whole network to an amplitude–phase model (i.e. a set of coupled ordinary differential equations describing the evolution of both the amplitudes and the phases of the oscillators). Then we prove the existence of traveling waves, in-phase and anti-phase locked oscillations, in both one-dimensional and two-dimensional lattices. The influence of the interaction strength and the number of oscillators is investigated, and the possible coexistence of waves and phase locked oscillations is shown.