Coherence versus reliability of stochastic oscillators with delayed feedback

For noisy self-sustained oscillators, both reliability, the stability of a response to a noisy driving, and coherence, understood in the sense of constancy of oscillation frequency, are important characteristics. Although both characteristics and techniques for controlling them have received great attention from researchers, owing to their importance for neurons, lasers, clocks, electric generators, etc., these characteristics were previously considered separately. In this paper, a strong quantitative relation between coherence and reliability is revealed for a limit cycle oscillator subject to a weak noisy driving and a linear delayed feedback, a convection control tool. The analytical findings are verified and enriched with a numerical simulation for the Van der Pol-Duffing oscillator.