Spatial Coherence Resonance near Pattern-Forming Instabilities

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that spatial coherence resonance, induced by spatiotemporal noise, can enhance intrinsic spatial scales in nonlinear media near pattern-forming instabilities, with analytical and experimental evidence.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of spatial coherence resonance near pattern-forming instabilities and provides analytical and model-based evidence for its occurrence.

Findings

Spatiotemporal noise can optimize the extraction of intrinsic spatial scales.

The phenomenon is observed in chemical reaction models and fluid convection models.

Analytical description is provided for the Swift-Hohenberg model.

Abstract

The analogue of temporal coherence resonance for spatial degrees of freedom is reported. Specifically, we show that spatiotemporal noise is able to optimally extract an intrinsic spatial scale in nonlinear media close to (but before) a pattern-forming instability. This effect is observed in a model of pattern-forming chemical reaction and in the Swift-Hohenberg model of fluid convection. In the latter case, the phenomenon is described analytically via an approximate approach.