Resumen: Despite the great attention devoted to the study of phase oscillators on complex networks in the last two decades, it remains unclear whether scale-free networks exhibit a nonzero critical coupling strength for the onset of synchronization in the thermodynamic limit. Here, we systematically compare predictions from the heterogeneous degree mean-field (HMF) and the quenched mean-field (QMF) approaches to extensive numerical simulations on large networks. We provide compelling evidence that the critical coupling vanishes as the number of oscillators increases for scale-free networks characterized by a power-law degree distribution with an exponent 2<¿=3, in line with what has been observed for other dynamical processes in such networks. For ¿>3, we show that the critical coupling remains finite, in agreement with HMF calculations and highlight phenomenological differences between critical properties of phase oscillators and epidemic models on scale-free networks. Finally, we also discuss at length a key choice when studying synchronization phenomena in complex networks, namely, how to normalize the coupling between oscillators. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.100.042302 Año: 2019 Publicado en: PHYSICAL REVIEW E 100, 4 (2019), 042302 1-8 ISSN: 2470-0045 Factor impacto JCR: 2.296 (2019) Categ. JCR: PHYSICS, MATHEMATICAL rank: 9 / 55 = 0.164 (2019) - Q1 - T1 Categ. JCR: PHYSICS, FLUIDS & PLASMAS rank: 13 / 34 = 0.382 (2019) - Q2 - T2 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.958 - Condensed Matter Physics (Q1) - Statistical and Nonlinear Physics (Q1) - Statistics and Probability (Q2)