A circadian oscillator driven by external noise and internal noise has been studied by use of the chemical Langevin equation method. When the system is near a Hopf bifurcation and driven by internal noise only, it is found that the coherence resonance phenomenon can be induced by the internal noise. When the system is simultaneously driven by internal and external noise, it is found that external-noise coherence resonance can be suppressed by internal noise, while internal-noise coherence resonance can be enhanced by modulation of the external noise intensity in a certain range of noise intensity. Another interesting result is that the external noise can regulate the optimal system size when the internal-noise coherence resonance occurs.

• Received 12 January 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.73.041923