The Gray-Scott model under the influence of noise: Reentrant spatiotemporal intermittency in a reaction-diffusion system

Abstract

We investigate the influence of noise on the spatiotemporal behavior of the Gray-Scott model, a prototype for a simple reaction-diffusion system. In the parameter regime studied it is characterized deterministically by a stable fixed point. As the noise increases a regular periodic pattern is replaced first by an irregularly oscillating periodic pattern and then by spatiotemporal intermittency. With further increasing noise strength the spatiotemporal intermittency is first replaced by a low amplitude noisy regime followed by spatiotemporal intermittency (STI) embedded into a noisy background. At sufficiently high noise intensity high amplitude noise prevails. We point out that the transition from spatiotemporal intermittency to low amplitude noise can be traced back to the fact that the spatially homogeneous state is a global attractor. As the noise strength grows further the "noisy" fixed point starts to communicate with STI leading to noise-induced spatiotemporal intermittency as an excitable state. At high enough noise strength high amplitude noise is left over wiping out all details of the underlying deterministic dynamical system.