Paper 2, Section II, B
An activator-inhibitor system is described by the equations
where .
Find the range of for which the spatially homogeneous system has a stable equilibrium solution with and . Determine when the equilibrium is a stable focus, and sketch the phase diagram for this case (restricting attention to and .
For the case when the homogeneous system is stable, consider spatial perturbations proportional to of the solution found above. Briefly explain why the system will be stable to spatial perturbations with very small or very large . Find conditions for the system to be unstable to a spatial perturbation (for some range of which need not be given). Sketch the region satisfying these conditions in the plane.
Find , the critical wavenumber at the onset of instability, in terms of and .