title: The Ginzburg-Landau approach to oscillatory media.
abstract: Close to a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, oscillatory media may be described, by the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. The most important spatiotemporal behaviors associated with this dynamics are reviewed here. It is shown, on a few concrete examples, how real chemical oscillators may be described by this equation, and how its coefficients may be obtained from the experimental data. Furthermore, the effect of natural forcings, induced by the experimental realization of chemical oscillators in batch reactors, may also be studied in the framework of complex Ginzburg-Landau equations and its associated phase dynamics. We show, in particular, how such forcings may locally transform oscillatory media into excitable ones and trigger the formation of complex spatiotemporal patterns.
authors.affiliation: Physikalisches Institut der Universitat Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, GermanyDepartment of Chemistry. H. C. Orsted Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, DenmarkCenter for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems of the Free University of Brussels, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: L.
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.forename: F.
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hynne
authors.forename: P.
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Graae Sorenson
authors.forename: D.
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Walgraef