Nucleation, drift, and decay of phase bubbles in period-2 oscillatory wave trains in a reaction-diffusion system

This is a report on experimental observations of phase bubbles, simply closed boundaries between domains oscillating 2pi out of phase, associated with period-2 oscillatory traveling waves in a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction-diffusion system. The bubbles nucleate spontaneously through a fast localized phase slip, drift radially away from a neighboring spiral wave core in an oscillatory fashion, and gradually shrink to disappear. Their oscillatory drift along the radial direction is a consequence of "period adaptation," while their lateral shrinkage is an attribute of local curvature. Similar dynamic structures can be reproduced in a simple, three-species reaction-diffusion model that supports period-2 oscillatory wave trains.