Noise can delay and advance the collapse of spatiotemporal chaos

Abstract

Spatiotemporal chaos on a regular ring network of excitable Gray-Scott dynamical elements collapses to a stable asymptotic state. We find that the addition of dynamical noise clearly influences the spatiotemporal pattern and the transient lifetime of spatiotemporal chaos. Spatially uniform noise significantly decreases the average lifetime of spatiotemporal chaos due to an enlargement of regions of local collapse. For spatially inhomogeneous noise the collapse is maximally delayed at an intermediate noise level, but drastically advanced for larger noise levels.