Synchronization of globally coupled non-identical maps with inhomogeneous delayed interactions

We study the synchronization of a coupled map lattice consisting of a one-dimensional chain of logistic maps. We consider global coupling with a time-delay that takes into account the finite velocity of propagation of interactions. We recently showed that clustering occurs for weak coupling, while for strong coupling the array synchronizes into a global state where each element sees all other elements in its current, present state (Physica A 325 (2003) 186; Phys. Rev. E 67 (2003) 056219). In this paper, we study the effects of in-homogeneities, both in the individual maps, which are non-identical maps evolving in period-2 orbits, and in the connection links, which have non-uniform strengths. We find that the global synchronization regime occurring for strong coupling is robust to heterogeneities: for strong enough average coupling the inhomogeneous array still synchronizes in a global state in which each element sees the other elements in positions close to its current state. However, the clustering behaviour occurring for small coupling is sensitive to inhomogeneities and differs from that occurring in the homogeneous array