Cross-diffusion-driven instability for reaction-diffusion systems: analysis and simulations

By introducing linear cross-diffusion for a two-component reaction-diffusion system with activator-depleted reaction kinetics (Gierer and Meinhardt, Kybernetik 12:30–39, 1972; Prigogine and Lefever, J Chem Phys 48:1695–1700, 1968; Schnakenberg, J Theor Biol 81:389–400, 1979), we derive cross-diffusion-driven instability conditions and show that they are a generalisation of the classical diffusion-driven instability conditions in the absence of cross-diffusion. Our most revealing result is that, in contrast to the classical reaction-diffusion systems without cross-diffusion, it is no longer necessary to enforce that one of the species diffuse much faster than the other. Furthermore, it is no longer necessary to have an activator–inhibitor mechanism as premises for pattern formation, activator–activator, inhibitor–inhibitor reaction kinetics as well as short-range inhibition and long-range activation all have the potential of giving rise to cross-diffusion-driven instability. To support our theoretical findings, we compute cross-diffusion induced parameter spaces and demonstrate similarities and differences to those obtained using standard reaction-diffusion theory. Finite element numerical simulations on planary square domains are presented to back-up theoretical predictions. For the numerical simulations presented, we choose parameter values from and outside the classical Turing diffusively-driven instability space; outside, these are chosen to belong to cross-diffusively-driven instability parameter spaces. Our numerical experiments validate our theoretical predictions that parameter spaces induced by cross-diffusion in both the $$u$$u and $$v$$v components of the reaction-diffusion system are substantially larger and different from those without cross-diffusion. Furthermore, the parameter spaces without cross-diffusion are sub-spaces of the cross-diffusion induced parameter spaces. Our results allow experimentalists to have a wider range of parameter spaces from which to select reaction kinetic parameter values that will give rise to spatial patterning in the presence of cross-diffusion.