Post-canard symmetry breaking and other exotic dynamic behaviors in identical coupled chemical oscillators

We analyze a model of two identical chemical oscillators coupled through diffusion of the slow variable. As a parameter is varied, a single oscillator undergoes a canard explosion-a transition from small amplitude, nearly harmonic oscillations to large-amplitude, relaxation oscillations over a very small parameter interval. In the coupled system, if the two oscillators have the same initial conditions, then the oscillators remain synchronized and exhibit the same canard behavior observed for the single oscillator. If the oscillators are separated initially, then in the region of the canard they display a variety of complex behaviors, including intermittent spiking, mixed-mode oscillation, and quasiperiodicity. Further variation of the parameter leads to a return to synchronized large-amplitude oscillation followed by a post-canard symmetry-breaking, in which one oscillator shows small-amplitude, complex behavior (mixed-mode oscillation, quasiperiodicity, chaos,...) while the other undergoes essentially periodic large amplitude behavior, resembling a master-slave scenario. We analyze the origins of this behavior by looking at several modified coupling schemes.