Coherence resonance in a chemical excitable system driven by coloured noise

We investigate how the temporal correlation in excitable systems driven by external noise affects the coherence of the system’s response. The coupling to the fluctuating environment is introduced via fluctuations of a bifurcation parameter that controls the local dynamics of the light-sensitive Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction and of its numerical description, the Oregonator model. Both systems are brought from a highly incoherent regime to a coherent one by an appropriate choice of the correlation time and keeping noise variance constant. This effect has been found both for an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process and for a dichotomous telegraph signal. In the latter case, we are able to connect the optimal correlation time, for which the system behaviour is most coherent, with a characteristic time scale of the system.