Drift of scroll waves in thin layers caused by thickness features: asymptotic theory and numerical simulations

Abstract

A scroll wave in a very thin layer of excitable medium is similar to a spiral wave, but its behaviour is affected by the layer geometry. We identify the effect of sharp variations of the layer thickness, which is separate from filament tension and curvature-induced drifts described earlier. We outline a two-step asymptotic theory describing this effect, including asymptotics in the layer thickness and calculation of the drift of so perturbed spiral waves using response functions. As specific examples, we consider drift of scrolls along thickness steps, ridges, ditches, and disk-shaped thickness variations. Asymptotic predictions agree with numerical simulations.

arXiv comment5 pages and 4 figures main text + 7 pages and 1 figure appendix; as accepted to PRL on 2015/01/14

References in corpus (3)

• Computation of the Drift Velocity of Spiral Waves using Response Functions
• Computation of the response functions of spiral waves in active media
• Drift Laws for Spiral Waves on Curved Anisotropic Surfaces

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