Influence of spatiotemporal 1/ f α−noise on structure formation in excitable media

Abstract

The influence of spatiotemporally correlated power-law, i.e. 1/f α , noise on pattern formation in a two dimensional excitable medium consisting of coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) oscillators is discussed. The signature of Spatiotemporal Stochastic Resonance (STSR) is investigated using the mutual information. It is found that optimal noise variance for STSR is minimal, if both the spatial and temporal power spectral densities of the noise decay with a characteristic exponent of α = 1. This effect is related to the band-pass frequency filtering characteristic of the FHN oscillator.