Linear reaction systems, oscillatory chemical

An important class of cycles with non-linear behavior is represented by situations when coupling occurs between cycles of different elements. The behavior of coupled systems of this type has been studied in detail by Prigogine (1967) and others. In these systems, multiple equilibria are sometimes possible and oscillatory behavior can occur. There have been suggestions that atmospheric systems of chemical species, coupled by chemical reactions, could exhibit multiple equilibria under realistic ranges of concentration (Fox et ai, 1982 White, 1984). However, no such situations have been confirmed by measurements. 

We discussed some aspects of the responses of chemical systems, linear or nonlinear, to perturbations on several earlier occasions. The first was the responses of the chemical species in a reaction mechanism (a network) in a nonequilibrium stable stationary state to a pulse in concentration of one species. We referred to this approach as the pulse method (see chapter 5 for theory and chapter 6 for experiments). Second, we studied the time series of the responses of concentrations to repeated random perturbations, the formulation of correlation functions from such measurements, and the construction of the correlation metric (see chapter 7 for theory and chapter 8 for experiments). Third, in the investigation of oscillatory chemical reactions we showed that the responses of a chemical system in a stable stationary state close to a Hopf bifurcation are related to the category of the oscillatory reaction and to the role of the essential species in the system (see chapter 11 for theory and experiments). In each of these cases the responses yield important information about the reaction pathway and the reaction mechanism. 

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