Repressing of Chemical Waves by Photochemical Inhibitor Releasing

Abstract

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction exhibits a very broad range of complex dynamic behaviour. The occurrence of chemical waves (also called trigger waves or autowaves) in a thin layer of unstirred BZ reagent is a well-known phenomenon. There are a lot of experimental and theoretical investigations dealing with this kind of waves (see e.g., /1,2/). It is well known that the necessary condition for the formation of travelling fronts, pulses or wave trains is an excitable (bistable or excitable monostable) or an oscillatory (limit cycle) behaviour of the corresponding homogeneous reaction system. For the sake of simplicity we restrict here our considerations to the propagation of travelling reaction fronts in the incomplete BZ system, i.e. in the BZ reagent without organic compounds like malonic acid. These autocatalytic reaction systems show similar characteristic properties, like, e.g. constant front velocity and nucleation phenomena, as the complete BZ system.