TOWARD A MATHEMATICAL-DESCRIPTION OF CHEMICAL PHASE WAVES

[Temporal periodicities in concentrations are observed in a number of chemical and biological systems, e.g., glycolysis.] Chemical phase waves are defined as previously (Smoes and Dreitlein) as the waves produced by the regression of period perturbations in a distributed oscillatory system. An interesting relation exists between the period of synchronous oscillations and the local perturbed period of distributed oscillations. This relation is not derived at this point but is introduced as a physically sound assumption. The relation is justified by the remarkable agreement between the waves obtained by integration of the rate equations and those obtained by the period averaging method described here. The agreement results from the type of dependence of the period on the parameters. This dependence is not particular to the present model but is observed in several oscillatory systems.