title: Spatiotemporal clustering and temporal order in the excitable BZ reaction.
abstract: The prototype experimental example of "spontaneous" pattern formation in an unstirred chemical medium is the oscillatory Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction: target patterns of outward-moving concentric rings are readily observed when the reaction is run in a thin layer in a Petri dish. In many experimental runs, new target centers appeared to form closer to pre-existing target centers than expected in a randomized model. Here we describe a simple direct test for the presence of temporal order in the spatiotemporal dynamics of target nucleation, and apply this test to detect significant temporal order in target formation in the ferroin-catalyzed BZ reaction. We also describe how mixing heterogeneity can generate temporal order, even in the absence of heterogeneous physical nucleating centers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549-1510, USA.
authors.forename: Harold M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Hastings
authors.forename: Sabrina G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Sobel
authors.forename: Arely
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lemus
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yuen
authors.forename: Catalina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Peralta
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cammalleri
authors.forename: Johan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chabrel
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chaterpaul
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hilaire
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ravinovitch
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zaharakis