Differential-flow-induced instability in a cubic autocatalator system

The formation of spatio-temporal stable patterns is considered for a reaction-diffusion-convection system based upon the cubic autocatalator, A + 2B 3B, B C, with the reactant A being replenished by the slow decay of some precursor P via the simple step P A. The reaction is considered in a differential-flow reactor in the form of a ring. It is assumed that the reactant A is immobilised within the reactor and the autocatalyst B is allowed to flow through the reactor with a constant velocity as well as being able to diffuse. The linear stability of the spatially uniform steady state (a, b) = (µ^–1, µ), where a and b are the dimensionless concentrations of the reactant A and autocatalyst B, and µ is a parameter reflecting the initial concentration of the precursor P, is discussed first. It is shown that a necessary condition for the bifurcation of this steady state to stable, spatially non-uniform, flow-generated patterns is that the flow parameter > _c(µ, ) where _c(µ,) is a (strictly positive) critical value of and is the dimensionless diffusion coefficient of the species B and also reflects the size of the system. Values of _c at which these bifurcations occur are derived in terms of µ and . Further information about the nature of the bifurcating branches (close to their bifurcation points) is obtained from a weakly nonlinear analysis. This reveals that both supercritical and subcritical Hopf bifurcations are possible. The bifurcating branches are then followed numerically by means of a path-following method, with the parameter as a bifurcation parameter, for representatives values of µ and . It is found that multiple stable patterns can exist and that it is also possible that any of these can lose stability through secondary Hopf bifurcations. This typically gives rise to spatio-temporal quasiperiodic transients through which the system is ultimately attracted to one of the remaining available stable patterns.