American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 7(110), 2013
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.110.078303
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Helical and helicoidal precipitation patterns emerging in the wake of reaction-diffusion fronts are studied. In our experiments, these chiral structures arise with well-defined probabilities P_H controlled by conditions such as e.g., the initial concentration of the reagents. We develop a model which describes the observed experimental trends. The results suggest that P_H is determined by a delicate interplay among the time and length scales related to the front and to the unstable precipitation modes and, furthermore, the noise amplitude also plays a quantifiable role. ; Comment: 7 pages, 5 composite figures