Mass transport of alkali metal with pulses in a surface reaction

Traveling waves and global oscillations triggered by attractive molecular interactions in an excitable system

During pattern formation in spatially extended systems, different mechanisms with different characteristic length scales, e.g., reaction-diffusion processes or molecular interactions, can be active. Such multiscale effects may generate new phenomena, which are not observed in systems where pattern formation occurs on a single scale. Here, we derive and analyze a reaction-diffusion model of the FitzHugh-Nagumo type with short-range attractive molecular interactions of the activator species. The model exhibits a wave instability. Simulations in one and two dimensions show traveling waves with a wavelength set by the parameters of the molecular interaction in the model. In two dimensions, simulations reveal a labyrinthine arrangement of the waves in systems with isotropic diffusion, whereas parallel bands of counterpropagating waves are formed in simulations of a model with anisotropic diffusion. The latter findings are in good qualitative agreement with experimental observation in the catalytic NO+H_{2} reaction on an anisotropic Rh(110) surface. In addition we have identified a transition regime in the simulations, where a short scale instability triggers global oscillations in an excitable regime.

Dynamics of chaotic systems with attractive and repulsive couplings

Together with attractive couplings, repulsive couplings play crucial roles in determining important evolutions in natural systems, such as in learning and oscillatory processes of neural networks. The complex interactions between them have great influence on the systems. A detailed understanding of the dynamical properties under this type of couplings is of practical significance. In this paper, we propose a model to investigate the dynamics of attractive and repulsive couplings, which give rise to rich phenomena, especially for amplitude death (AD). The relationship among various dynamics and possible transitions to AD are illustrated. When the system is in the maximally stable AD, we observe the transient behavior of in-phase (high frequency) and out-of-phase (low frequency) motions. The mechanism behind the phenomenon is given.