BIFURCATION ANALYSIS OF REACTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS .3. CHEMICAL OSCILLATIONS

There are a number of ways of obtaining oscillations in systems which are described by reaction-diffusion equations. When one imposes oscillatory boundary conditions, or prescribes oscillatory concentrations for a particular buffer reagent, forced oscillations of the system are obtained. Alternatively, transient oscillations are sometimes obtained in a chemical system during its evolution to a steady state. The present analysis does not look at either of these situations, but instead considers oscillations which arise as a natural consequence of the coupling of diffusion and chemical kinetics and which persist over long time intervals.