Desynchronization of coupled phase oscillators, with application to the Kuramoto system under mean-field feedback

This note introduces two notions of desynchronization for interconnected phase oscillators by requiring that phases drift away from one another either at all times or in average. It provides a characterization of each of these two notions based on the grounded variable associated to the system, and relates them to a classical notion of instability valid in Euclidean spaces. An illustration is provided through the Kuramoto system, which is shown to be desynchronizable by proportional mean-field feedback.