title: Traveling excitable waves successively generated in a nonlinear proliferation system.
abstract: We study the dynamics of spatiotemporal pattern formation in a nonlinear proliferation system (e.g., cell division supported on a field of nutrition), in which the mechanism of activation and its self-suppression is simultaneously implemented. This dynamical model has been numerically realized with coupled cellular automata (CA), and various long-standing spatiotemporal patterns have been observed. Among others, a successive generation of traveling waves by implanting a spot of cells onto the field consisting of nutrition and activator is particularly interesting. This takes place despite the fact that the present reaction network has a stable fixed point and therefore autonomous temporal oscillatory does not exist in the mean field. Indeed, the reaction-diffusion equation method (RD) applied to this network reproduces only a single excitable wave and soon falls into a steady state (a fixed point) without the following propagating waves. This system, having a stable fixed point, is an excitable system of different kind from the FitzHugh-Nagumo model in that it can generate a pulse propagating outwards by adding only a single cell onto it from outside the system. The present excitation upon dropping a cell is amplified to macroscopic level by a hidden dynamics of oscillation between the activation and its self-suppression. A pulse thus generated is propagated in space time with the help of diffusion. Through a precise comparison between CA and RD, it is found that a very small amount of residue of the cells and activators, which are left unburned in the stochastic treatment of reactions by the CA, becomes a seed to excite the system and generate the next pulse wave. This newly born wave can leave another seed of reaction in the field after its propagation. Based on this analysis, we account for the appearance of other patterns observed. A possible control of these patterns by varying the spatial distribution of initial concentration of the relevant agents such as the activator is also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Basic Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 153-8902 Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Kenta
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Odagiri
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takatsuka