Turing's diffusive threshold in random reaction-diffusion systems

Abstract

Turing instabilities of reaction-diffusion systems can only arise if the diffusivities of the chemical species are sufficiently different. This threshold is unphysical in most systems with $N=2$ diffusing species, forcing experimental realizations of the instability to rely on fluctuations or additional nondiffusing species. Here we ask whether this diffusive threshold lowers for $N>2$ to allow "true" Turing instabilities. Inspired by May's analysis of the stability of random ecological communities, we analyze the probability distribution of the diffusive threshold in reaction-diffusion systems defined by random matrices describing linearized dynamics near a homogeneous fixed point. In the numerically tractable cases $N⩽6$, we find that the diffusive threshold becomes more likely to be smaller and physical as $N$ increases and that most of these many-species instabilities cannot be described by reduced models with fewer species.

6 pages, 4 figures; 5 pages of Supplemental Material; revised, expanded, and updated version

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