Spatial disorder and pattern formation in lattices of coupled bistable elements

Abstract

The spatio-temporal dynamics of discrete lattices of coupled bistable elements is considered. It is shown that both regular and chaotic spatial field distributions can be realized depending on parameter values and initial conditions. For illustration we provide results for two lattice systems: the FitzHugh-Nagumo model and a network of coupled bistable oscillators. For the latter we also prove the existence of phase clusters, with phase locking of elements in each cluster