Intermittency regimes of poorly-mixed chemical oscillators

• Published in: Chaos, solitons and fractals solitons and fractals, 2022-04, Vol.157, p.111920, Article 111920
• Main Authors: Carballosa, Alejandro, Muñuzuri, Alberto P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0960-0779; 1873-2887
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2022.111920

•Synchronization states in poorly-connected chemical oscillators.•Intermittency regimes observed switching from one synchronization state to another.•Spontaneous clustering formation among the oscillators when coupling is only local and not strong enough. Perfect mixing or interaction between oscillators is almost never achieved under experimental conditions and, nevertheless, it might be crucial in understanding the observed phenomena. We propose a mathematical model that directly introduces the degree of mixing and analyze the consequences on the synchronization patterns observed. For that we considered catalyst-loaded chemical oscillators as they represent a paradigm for synchronization phenomena from the experimental and numerical point of view. In this study we explore a modified 3-variable Oregonator model where the active surrounding solution is discretized as oscillators themselves and a discrete radius of chemical exchange is introduced to account for spatial distribution and movement dynamics. We found that for low-to none levels of mixing in the system, a series of irregular states appear on the edge of phase transitions among dynamical regimes, and that several novel non-fully synchronized behaviors appear for a small window in the parameter space.