The Laboratory of Anna Lin
at Duke University Department of Physics
Chemical & Biological Nonlinear Dynamics
Brad Marts
Externally forced oscillatory and excitable systems
My research is focused on resonant behavior and pattern formation. I use a light sensitive Belousov-Zhabotinsky chemical reaction to study frequency locking of a spatially extended field of oscillators to a driving signal and the evolution of spatial phase domains. My research has been focused on the high intensity Ising patterns found in the 2:1 resonance tongue and the mechanisms which drive the dynamics there.
I am also interested in the non-equilibrium Ising-Bloch bifurcation in the 2:1 tongue. There has been a theoretical prediction of a transition from the resonant Ising patterns described above and near-resonant Bloch patterns found at lower forcing strength. I believe we have observed the transition from stationary phase fronts to traveling phase fronts and we continue to examine the exact form of this transition.