Influence of Heavy Water on Waves and Oscillations in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction

Excitable media allow excitation waves to travel through them, which play an important role in a variety of natural processes, in physics, chemistry and live-sciences. (Sagues & Epstein, 2003; Tabony, 2006). By far the best understood model system for all these processes is the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction (Belousov, 1959; Zaitkin & Zhabotinsky, 1970). This oscillating chemical reaction, among others, exhibits propagation of two-dimensional waves in thin layers of reaction solution (Luengviriya et al., 2006) or in gels (Yamaguchi et al, 2006), typically at velocities of some millimeter per minute. Also, in a stirred bulk solution, regulary oscillations in time can be observed (Dolzmann et al., 2007). From the beginning a variety of detailed kinetic models have been constructed to explain the oscillatory behavior of the bulk BZ reaction. The first and simplest is known as the FKN-model (Field et al., 1972), which involves 18 elementary steps and 21 chemical species. It can be simplified, however, assuming three key species: HBrO