Average dynamics of a finite set of coupled phase oscillators

We study the solutions of a dynamical system describing the average activity of an infinitely large set of driven coupled excitable units. We compared their topological organization with that reconstructed from the numerical integration of finite sets. In this way, we present a strategy to establish the pertinence of approximating the dynamics of finite sets of coupled nonlinear units by the dynamics of its infinitely large surrogate. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.