Self-organized spiral patterns at the edge of an order-disorder nonequilibrium phase transition

We present a spatially extended version of the Wood-Van den Broeck-Kawai-Lindenberg stochastic phase-coupled oscillator model. Our model is embedded in two-dimensional (2d) array with a range-dependent interaction. The Wood-Van den Broeck-Kawai-Lindenberg model is known to present a phase transition from a disordered state to a globally oscillatory phase in which the majority of the units are in the same discrete phase. Here we address a parameter combination in which such global oscillations are not present. We explore the role of the interaction range from a nearest neighbor coupling in which a disordered phase is observed and the global coupling in which the population concentrate in a single phase. We find that for intermediate interaction range the system presents spiral wave patterns that are strongly influenced by the initial conditions and can spontaneously emerge from the stochastic nature of the model. Our results present a spatial oscillatory pattern not observed previously in the Wood-Van den Broeck-Kawai-Lindenberg model and are corroborated by a spatially extended mean-field calculation.