Graphop Mean-Field Limits for Kuramoto-Type Models

Originally arising in the context of interacting particle systems in statistical physics, dynamical systems and differential equations on networks/graphs have permeated into a broad number of mathematical areas as well as into many applications. One central problem in the field is to find suitable approximations of the dynamics as the number of nodes/vertices tends to infinity, i.e., in the large graph limit. A cornerstone in this context are Vlasov-Fokker-Planck equations (VFPEs) describing a particle density on a mean-field level. For all-to-all coupled systems, it is quite classical to prove the rigorous approximation by VFPEs for many classes of particle systems. For dense graphs converging to graphon limits, one also knows that mean-field approximation holds for certain classes of models, e.g., for the Kuramoto model on graphs. Yet, the space of intermediate density and sparse graphs is clearly extremely relevant. Here we prove that the Kuramoto model can be be approximated in the mean-field limit by far more general graph limits than graphons. In particular, our contributions are as follows. (I) We show, how to introduce operator theory more abstractly into VFPEs by considering graphops. Graphops have recently been proposed as a unifying approach to graph limit theory, and here we show that they can be used for differential equations on graphs. (II) For the Kuramoto model on graphs we rigorously prove that there is a VFPE equation approximating it in the mean-field sense. (III) This mean-field VFPE involves a graphop, and we prove the existence, uniqueness, and continuous graphop-dependence of weak solutions. (IV) On a technical level, our results rely on designing a new suitable metric of graphop convergence and on employing Fourier analysis on compact abelian groups to approximate graphops using summability kernels.