The influence that intrinsic local density fluctuations can have on solutions
of mean-field reaction-diffusion models is investigated numerically by means of
the spatial patterns arising from two species that react and diffuse in the
presence of strong internal reaction noise. The dynamics of the Gray-Scott (GS)
model with constant external source is first cast in terms of a continuum field
theory representing the corresponding master equation. We then derive a
Langevin description of the field theory and use these stochastic differential
equations in our simulations. The nature of the multiplicative noise is
specified exactly without recourse to assumptions and turns out to be of the
same order as the reaction itself, and thus cannot be treated as a small
perturbation. Many of the complex patterns obtained in the absence of noise for
the GS model are completely obliterated by these strong internal fluctuations,
but we find novel spatial patterns induced by this reaction noise in regions of
parameter space that otherwise correspond to homogeneous solutions when
fluctuations are not included.Comment: 12 pages, 18 figure