Synchronization of extended chaotic systems with long-range interactions: an analogy to Levy-flight spreading of epidemics

Spatially extended chaotic systems with power-law decaying interactions are considered. Two coupled replicas of such systems synchronize to a common spatiotemporal chaotic state above a certain coupling strength. The synchronization transition is studied as a nonequilibrium phase transition and its critical properties are analyzed at varying the interaction range. The transition is found to be always continuous, while the critical indexes vary with continuity with the power-law exponent characterizing the interaction. Strong numerical evidences indicate that the transition belongs to the anomalous directed percolation family of universality classes found for Levy-flight spreading of epidemic processes.