  Two replicas of spatially extended chaotic systems synchronize to a common
spatio-temporal chaotic state when coupled above a critical strength. As a
prototype of each single spatio-temporal chaotic system a lattice of maps
interacting via power-law coupling is considered. The synchronization
transition is studied as a non-equilibrium phase transition, and its critical
properties are analyzed at varying the spatial interaction range as well as the
nonlinearity of the dynamical units composing each system. In particular,
continuous and discontinuous local maps are considered. In both cases the
transitions are of the second order with critical indexes varying with the
exponent characterizing the interaction range. For discontinuous maps it is
numerically shown that the transition belongs to the {\it anomalous directed
percolation} (ADP) family of universality classes, previously identified for
L{\'e}vy-flight spreading of epidemic processes. For continuous maps, the
critical exponents are different from those characterizing ADP, but apart from
the nearest-neighbor case, the identification of the corresponding universality
classes remains an open problem. Finally, to test the influence of
deterministic correlations for the studied synchronization transitions, the
chaotic dynamical evolutions are substituted by suitable stochastic models. In
this framework and for the discontinuous case, it is possible to derive an
effective Langevin description that corresponds to that proposed for ADP.
