Relative stability among metastable steady state structures in chemical reaction systems

In a nonlinear chemical reaction system, which consists of coupled reaction cells in one dimensional space, various spatial structures characterized by the peak number Np, and the spacing between the peaks λp, were shown to exist stably for a proper region of parameters. The relative stability of the steady states was studied by fluctuating the value of a parameter in computer simulation. The steady state entropy production for each metastable state was calculated. These results have shown that the entropy production is maximized for the most stable steady state. The present result that the relative stability of steady states can be described by means of entropy production at steady states is consistent with the variational principle previously proposed for the relative stability among the metastable states of nonlinear nonequilibrium systems.