Specific external forcing of spatiotemporal dynamics in reaction-diffusion systems

Self-organization behavior and in particular pattern forming spatiotemporal dynamics play an important role in far from equilibrium chemical and biochemical systems. Specific external forcing and control of self-organizing processes might be of great benefit in various applications ranging from technical systems to modern biomedical research. We demonstrate that in a cellular chemotaxis system modeled by one-dimensional reaction-diffusion equations particular forms of spatiotemporal dynamics can be induced and stabilized by controlling spatially distributed influx patterns of a chemical species as a function of time. In our model study we show that a propagating wave with certain shape and velocity and static symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns can be forced and manipulated by numerically computing open-loop optimal influx controls. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.