Abstract
Spatial nonhomogeneities can synchronize clusters of spatially extended oscillators in different frequency plateaus. Motivated by physiological rhythms, we fully characterize the phase diagram of a Ginzburg-Landau (GL) model with a gradient of frequencies. For large gradients and diffusion, the rest state is stable, and the linear spectrum around it maps onto the non-Hermitian Bloch-Torrey equation. When complex pairs of eigenvalues turn unstable, precursors of plateaus grow, separated by defects where the GL amplitude vanishes. Nonlinear effects either saturate the amplitude of plateaus or lead to a phase-locked state, with saddle-node bifurcations separating the two regimes. In the region of plateaus, we trace the formation of defects to a nonlinear renormalization of the diffusivity, and determine the scaling of their number and length vs dynamical parameters.