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Turing's Diffusive Threshold in Random Reaction-Diffusion Systems.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Haas, Pierre A 
Goldstein, Raymond E 

Abstract

Turing instabilities of reaction-diffusion systems can only arise if the diffusivities of the chemical species are sufficiently different. This threshold is unphysical in most systems with N=2 diffusing species, forcing experimental realizations of the instability to rely on fluctuations or additional nondiffusing species. Here, we ask whether this diffusive threshold lowers for N>2 to allow "true" Turing instabilities. Inspired by May's analysis of the stability of random ecological communities, we analyze the probability distribution of the diffusive threshold in reaction-diffusion systems defined by random matrices describing linearized dynamics near a homogeneous fixed point. In the numerically tractable cases N⩽6, we find that the diffusive threshold becomes more likely to be smaller and physical as N increases, and that most of these many-species instabilities cannot be described by reduced models with fewer diffusing species.

Description

Keywords

40 Engineering

Journal Title

Phys Rev Lett

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-9007
1079-7114

Volume Title

126

Publisher

American Physical Society (APS)
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/M017982/1)
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF7523)
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation