Visibility graph similarity: A new measure of generalized synchronization in coupled dynamic systems

Synchronization is defined as interdependencies among coupled dynamic systems. In most coupled systems the intrinsic and internal variants, and the interdependencies among their subsystems are not accessible. Therefore, in order to quantify the interdependencies among the coupled systems, attempts have been made through measuring the synchronization between their outputs represented mostly as time series. In this paper a new method, called Visibility Graph Similarity (VGS), is presented as a method of measuring Generalized Synchronization. First, each time series is reconstructed as a trajectory in a state space. Next, a Distance Time Series (DTS) is created from a sequence of relative distances of the states to a reference state. Subsequently, a visibility graph (VG) is constructed using DTS. Then, a sequence of degrees of the VG, called Degree Sequence (DS), is obtained. Correlation of the DSs of two coupled systems is called VGS and is presented as a measurement of similarity of dynamics of the coupled systems. The synchronization measurement performance of the VGS is compared with synchronization likelihood (SL) and the classical cross correlation method using two identical and non-identical models of two coupled Henon map over the entire time domain. Also, it is compared with SL for tracing temporal synchronization using both models. It is shown that VGS provides a more accurate measure of the overall synchronization compared with SL. It is more reliable for measuring weak couplings compared with the cross correlation method. Moreover, VGS uses fewer parameters and detects the temporal synchronization sooner than the SL.