Algorithm for the Characterization of the Cross-Correlation Structure in Multivariate Time Series

In this paper, it is shown that the block circulant matrix decomposition technique makes the multivariate singular spectrum analysis (M-SSA) a well suited tool for detecting of changes of the correlation structure in non-stationary multivariate time series in the presence of high observational noise levels. The major drawback of M-SSA, that it operates on a large covariance matrix and becomes computationally expensive, can be avoided by reordering the Toeplitz-block covariance matrix into a block Toeplitz matrix, embedding this into a block circulant matrix and efficiently block-diagonalizing this by the means of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) using the well known algorithm. The overall degree of synchronization among multiple-channel signals is defined by the synchronization index (the S-estimator) of the rearranged and truncated eigenvalue spectrum. Throughout the experiment, the high capability of the proposed algorithm to detect the lag-synchronized state under the influence of strong noise is validated with simulated data—a network of time series generated by autoregressive models (AR) and a network of coupled chaotic Roessler oscillators.