Differential-flow-induced instability in a cubic autocatalator system (Q1392597)

The formation of spatio-temporal stable patterns is considered for a reaction-diffusion-convection system based upon the cubic autocatalator, \(A+2B\to 3B\), \(B\to C\), with the reactant \(A\) being replenished by the slow decay of some precursor \(P\) via the simple step \(P\to A\). 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. We discuss the linear stability of the spatially uniform steady state \((a,b)=(\mu^{-1},\mu)\), where \(a\) and \(b\) are the dimensionless concentrations of the reactant \(A\) and autocatalyst \(B\), and \(\mu\) is a parameter reflecting the initial concentration of the precursor \(P\). 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 \(\varphi> \varphi_c (\mu, \lambda)\) where \(\varphi_c (\mu, \lambda)\) is a (strictly positive) critical value of \(\varphi\), and \(\lambda\) is the dimensionless diffusion coefficient of the species \(B\) and also reflects the size of system.