Noise-induced effects in an active medium with periodic boundary conditions

A model of an active medium with periodic boundary conditions in which the elementary cell is represented by a FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillator has been studied. Depending on the system parameters, the elementary cell can occur in either auto-oscillatory or excitable state. In both cases, an autonomous medium in the absence of noise performs sustained oscillations and exhibits the phenomenon of multistability. A method for diagnostics of the character of medium with the aid of external noise is proposed, specific features in behavior of the system near the point of transition from the excitable to auto-oscillatory state are considered, and the phenomena of coherent resonance and noise-induced switching are described.