Temperature and Light Multiphysical Fields Modulate the Propagation of Chemical Waves on Multiple Length Scales in a System

Abstract

Abstract The phenomenon of multiple length scales exists in plants during growth, which is influenced not only by light but also by other physical fields such as substance concentration and temperature, and the combined effects of various physical fields form a complex multi-scale phenomenon. However, the mechanism of the multi-physical interaction of temperature and light on the formation of multiple length scales in plants has not been investigated. In this paper, we coupled a gel with a Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) chemical reaction system, constructed a one-dimensional open reaction diffusion system, and investigated the changes in the multiple length scale periodic structure of chemical waves in the one-dimensional gel system under the combined effect of multiple physical fields of light and temperature. It was found that when increasing the light intensity at T = 26 °C or decreasing the temperature at the light intensity I ≤ 50 µW·cm−2, the chemical wave multiple length scale period structure of the system changed as follows: P8 → P16 → P8 → P4 → P2 → P1, and the chemical wave period structure complexity showed a non-linear change of first increasing and then decreasing. When increasing the light intensity at T ≤ 24 °C or decreasing the temperature at the light intensity I > 50 µW·cm−2, the chemical wave period structure complexity of the system shows a linear decrease.