Diffusion-Driven Instability of a fourth order system

Abstract

We analyze diffusion-driven (Turing) instability of a reaction-diffusion system. The innovation is that we replace the traditional Laplacian diffusion operator with a combination of the fourth order bi-Laplacian operator and the second order Laplacian. We find new phenomena when the fourth order and second order terms are competing, meaning one of them stabilizes the system whereas the other destabilizes it. We characterize Turing space in terms of parameter values in the system, and also find criteria for instability in terms of the domain size and tension parameter.