Solitary-wave phenomena in an excitable surface reaction

Abstract
A simple reaction-diffusion model for the CO oxidation on Pt(110), exhibiting among other features bistability and oscillations, is studied in an excitable parameter region where traveling solitary pulses with high O coverage may be formed on an otherwise CO-covered surface. If it is assumed that small patches are structurally imperfect, effects of wave splitting of a pulse, as well as partial annihilation and solitonlike behavior, result upon collision of two pulses, in agreement with experimental observations.