Topological transitions in swarmalators systems

After its development, the swarmalators model attracted a great deal of attention since it was found to be very suitable to reproduce several behaviors in collective dynamics. However, few works explain the transitions that are observed while varying system parameters. In this letter, we demonstrate that the changes observed in swarmalator dynamics are governed by changes in the system’s topology. To provide a deeper understanding of these changes, we present a topological framework for the swarmalator system and determine the topological charge Q and the helicity γ of the corresponding topology. Investigations on synchronization and transition to synchronization are studied using this topological charge and the variance of the helicity. These techniques appear to offer a useful way to interpret some previously unexplained results and may help clarify the mechanisms involved in the transition to synchronization.