Mode locking in systems of globally coupled phase oscillators.

We investigate the dynamics of a Kuramoto-type system of globally coupled phase oscillators with equidistant natural frequencies and a coupling strength below the synchronization threshold. It turns out that in such cases one can observe a stable regime of sharp pulses in the mean field amplitude with a pulsation frequency given by spacing of the natural frequencies. This resembles a process known as mode locking in lasers and relies on the emergence of a phase relation induced by the nonlinear coupling. We discuss the role of the first and second harmonics in the phase-interaction function for the stability of the pulsations and present various bifurcating dynamical regimes such as periodically and chaotically modulated mode locking, transitions to phase turbulence, and intermittency. Moreover, we study the role of the system size and show that in certain cases one can observe type II supertransients, where the system reaches the globally stable mode-locking solution only after an exponentially long transient of phase turbulence.