System Size Resonance Associated with Canard Phenomenon in a Biological Cell System

The influence of internal noise on the calcium oscillations is studied. It is found that stochastic calcium oscillations occur when the internal noise is considered, while the corresponding deterministic dynamics only yields a steady state. Also, the performance of such oscillations shows two maxima with the variation of the system size, indicating the occurrence of system size resonance. This behavior is found to be intimately connected with the canard phenomenon. Interestingly, it is also found that one of the optimal system sizes matches well with the real cell size, and such a match is robust to the variation of the control parameters.