Dynamical behavior in linearly coupled Oregonators

Tyson [Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 316 (1979) 279] conjectured that the stable homogeneous positive steady state may coexist with stable echo wave (meaning anti-phase wave) in linearly coupled Oregonators (and thus gave a conjecture on the bifurcation diagram of this system). In this paper, we rigorously prove stability of the in-phase wave and existence of the anti-phase wave. Our proof procedure actually gives a general method (or line) to deal with the analogous problem. For instance, to prove stability of the in-phase wave, following our line one may decompose the corresponding variational equations (a four-dimensional system) into two independent planar systems; also for instance, existence of the anti-phase wave can be concluded as existence and uniqueness of limit cycle of the associate oscillator. In addition, according to parameter regimes of existence of the anti-phase wave and the stable homogeneous positive steady state, we give their coexistence regime and specify it, and in particular give the regime of the coupled coefficient. The specified results show that the theoretical results are in good accord with Tyson’s numerical results.