TRANSITION FRONTS AND LOCALIZED STRUCTURES IN BISTABLE REACTION-DIFFUSION EQUATIONS

Models of chemical reactions that undergo subcritical Hopf bifurcation s and have a regime of bistability are shown to exhibit some interesti ng behavior when diffusively coupled. Waves joining a stable steady st ate to a periodic wavetrain are constructed for low and high threshold s. For intermediate thresholds, localized oscillatory regions are foun d. These can interact at a distance and behave like weakly coupled osc illators. These patterns are found in both solvable and realistic mode ls for chemical oscillations.