Collision and Self-Replication of Pulses in a Reaction Diffusion System

Abstract

We study numerically, the collision and self-replication of pulses in a reaction-diffusion system of the activator-inhibitor type. We established the following new properties of pulse dynamics. Two propagating pulses result in a localized oscillatory domain after a head-on collision. However this domain is a transient one and disappears after one period leaving new pulses propagating outward. In another parameter regime, a traveling pulse breaks into a pair of pulses propagating in opposite directions.