Intermittency regimes of poorly-mixed chemical oscillators

Abstract

Perfect mixing or interaction between oscillators is almost never achieved under experimental conditions and, nevertheless, it might be crucial in understanding the observed phenomena. We propose a mathematical model that directly introduces the degree of mixing and analyze the consequences on the synchronization patterns observed. For that we considered catalyst-loaded chemical oscillators as they represent a paradigm for synchronization phenomena from the experimental and numerical point of view. In this study we explore a modified 3-variable Oregonator model where the active surrounding solution is discretized as oscillators themselves and a discrete radius of chemical exchange is introduced to account for spatial distribution and movement dynamics. We found that for low-to none levels of mixing in the system, a series of irregular states appear on the edge of phase transitions among dynamical regimes, and that several novel non-fully synchronized behaviors appear for a small window in the parameter space.