Evidence for low dimension chaos in electrically coupled chemical oscillator in batch condition

In the last few years, the study of coupling of chemical reactions has gained immense importance because of the dynamics arising from such a set up is analogous to that of biological processes. In the present study we have made an attempt to characterize the dynamics observed during the electrical coupling of two Belousov - Zhabotinskii (BZ) oscillators in batch condition. One BZ oscillator is catalysed by cerium and the other by manganese. The coupling strength is varied by using external resistances. The possibility of existence of deterministic chaos in this reaction is examined by nonlinear dynamical techniques such as the estimation of Lyapunov exponent and correlation dimension, followed by false nearest neighbourhood method, surrogate data and predictability analyses. All the above methods of analysis show that due to coupling the oscillator catalysed by cerium undergoes more changes in its dynamics from the limit cycle behaviour than the other oscillator, i.e., the fast oscillating manganese system affects the dynamics of the slow oscillating cerium system. Chaos is observed in time series representing the potential difference between the two coupled oscillators. The degree of chaos is a function of the external resistance.