Spatiotemporal chaos in an electric current driven ionic reaction-diffusion system

Two types of transitions from the time-periodic spatiotemporal patterns to chaotic ones in the spatially one-dimensional ionic reaction-diffusion system forced either with direct or alternating electric field are described and analyzed by numerical techniques. An ionic version of the Brusselator kinetic scheme is considered. The Karhunen-Loeve decomposition technique is shown to be a possible tool for the global representation of dynamic behavior, but fails as a tool in the identification of the route of transition to chaos in the case of direct current forcing. Higher dimensional chaos with two positive Lyapunov exponents has been identified for the case of alternating current forcing. Results of the Karhunen-Loeve analysis are compared to results of classical analysis of local time series (attractor dimensions, Lyapunov exponents).