Chaos and domain formation in an inhomogeneous coupled map lattice

Domain formation and suppression of chaos due to the inhomogeneity in a diffusively coupled map lattice (CML) are examined. The parameter characterizing the dynamics of each element is changed at every Mth site. It is found that for appropriately chosen values of coupling constant and this parameter the spatio-temporal chaos in a homogeneous CML can be suppressed into a domain structure with regular or weakly chaotic time evolution. Although this suppression is possible even for quite large M, the time step required to reach the domain structure from a random initial state increases with M exponentially.