A multiple scale pattern formation cascade in reaction-diffusion systems of activator-inhibitor type (Q1655864)

Summary: A family of singular limits of reaction-diffusion systems of activator-inhibitor type in which stable stationary sharp-interface patterns may form is investigated. For concreteness, the analysis is performed for the FitzHugh-Nagumo model on a suitably rescaled bounded domain in \(\mathbb {R}^N\), with \(N \geq 2\). It is shown that when the system is sufficiently close to the limit the dynamics starting from the appropriate smooth initial data breaks down into five distinct stages on well-separated time scales, each of which can be approximated by a suitable reduced problem. The analysis allows to follow fully the progressive refinement of spatio-temporal patterns forming in the systems under consideration and provides a framework for understanding the pattern formation scenarios in a large class of physical, chemical, and biological systems modeled by the considered class of reaction-diffusion equations.