SPATIOTEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF MESOSCOPIC CHAOTIC SYSTEMS

An investigation of the mesoscopic dynamics of chemical systems whose mass action equation gives rise to a deterministic chaotic attractor i s carried out. A reactive lattice-gas model for the three-variable aut ocatalator is used to provide a mesoscopic description of the dynamics . The global and local dynamics is studied as a function of system siz e and diffusion coefficient. When the diffusion length is comparable t o the system size phase coherence is maintained but the amplitudes of the oscillations are uncorrelated due to interaction between fluctuati ons and the instability of the chaotic dynamics. If the diffusion leng th is small compared to the system size then phase turbulence serves t o destroy the noisy global attractor.