Three-dimensional excitable systems can create nonlinear scroll waves that rotate around one-dimensional phase singularities. Recent theoretical work predicts that these filaments drift along step-like height variations. Here we test this prediction using experiments with thin layers of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. We observe that over short distances scroll waves are attracted towards the step and then rapidly commence a steady drift along the step line. The translating filaments always reside in the shallow subsystem and terminate on the step plateau near the edge. Accordingly filaments in the deep subsystem initially collide with and shorten at the step wall. The drift speeds obey the predicted proportional dependence on the logarithm of the height ratio and the direction depends on the vortex chirality. We also observe drift along the perimeter of rectangular plateaus and find that the filaments perform sharp turns at the corners. In addition, we investigate rectangular troughs for which vortices of equal chirality can drift in different directions. The latter two effects are reproduced in numerical simulations with the Barkley model. The simulations show that narrow troughs instigate scroll wave encounters that induce repulsive interaction and symmetry breaking. Similar phenomena could exist in the geometrical complicated ventricles of the human heart where reentrant vortex waves cause tachycardia and fibrillation.
Three-dimensional excitable systems can selforganize vortex patterns that rotate around one-dimensional phase singularities called filaments. In experiments with the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and numerical simulations, we pin these scroll waves to moving heterogeneities and demonstrate the controlled repositioning of their rotation centers. If the pinning site extends only along a portion of the filament, the phase singularity is stretched out along the trajectory of the heterogeneity which effectively writes the singularity into the system. Its trailing end point follows the heterogeneity with a lower velocity. This velocity, its dependence on the placement of the anchor, and the shape of the filament are explained by a curvature flow model.
We consider propagation of high-frequency wave packets along a smooth evolving background flow whose evolution is described by a simple-wave type of solutions of hydrodynamic equations. In geometrical optics approximation, the motion of the wave packet obeys the Hamilton equations with the dispersion law playing the role of the Hamiltonian. This Hamiltonian depends also on the amplitude of the background flow obeying the Hopf-like equation for the simple wave. The combined system of Hamilton and Hopf equations can be reduced to a single ordinary differential equation whose solution determines the value of the background amplitude at the location of the wave packet. This approach extends the results obtained in Ref.~cite{ceh-19} for the rarefaction background flow to arbitrary simple-wave type background flows. The theory is illustrated by its application to waves obeying the KdV equation.
While free scroll rings are non-stationary objects that either grow or contract with time, spatial confinement can have a large impact on their evolution reaching from significant lifetime extension [J. F. Totz , H. Engel, and O. Steinbock, New J. Phys. 17, 093043 (2015)] up to formation of stable stationary and breathing pacemakers [A. Azhand, J. F. Totz, and H. Engel, Europhys. Lett. 108, 10004 (2014)]. Here, we explore the parameter range in which the interaction between an axis-symmetric scroll ring and a confining planar no-flux boundary can be studied experimentally in transparent gel layers supporting chemical wave propagation in the photosensitive variant of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky medium. Based on full three-dimensional simulations of the underlying modified complete Oregonator model for experimentally realistic parameters, we determine the conditions for successful initiation of scroll rings in a phase diagram spanned by the layer thickness and the applied light intensity. Furthermore, we discuss whether the illumination-induced excitability gradient due to Lambert-Beers law as well as a possible inclination of the filament plane with respect to the no-flux boundary can destabilize the scroll ring.
In this work, a systematic study, examining the propagation of periodic and solitary wave along the magnetic field in a cold collision-free plasma, is presented. Employing the quasi-neutral approximation and the conservation of momentum flux and energy flux in the frame co-traveling with the wave, the exact analytical solution of the stationary solitary pulse is found analytically in terms of particle densities, parallel and transverse velocities, as well as transverse magnetic fields. Subsequently, this solution is generalized in the form of periodic waveforms represented by cnoidal-type waves. These considerations are fully analytical in the case where the total angular momentum flux $L$, due to the ion and electron motion together with the contribution due to the Maxwell stresses, vanishes. A graphical representation of all associated fields is also provided.
The localization characters of the first-order rogue wave (RW) solution $u$ of the Kundu-Eckhaus equation is studied in this paper. We discover a full process of the evolution for the contour line with height $c^2+d$ along the orthogonal direction of the ($t,x$)-plane for a first-order RW $|u|^2$: A point at height $9c^2$ generates a convex curve for $3c^2leq d<8c^2$, whereas it becomes a concave curve for $0<d<3c^2$, next it reduces to a hyperbola on asymptotic plane (i.e. equivalently $d=0$), and the two branches of the hyperbola become two separate convex curves when $-c^2<d<0$, and finally they reduce to two separate points at $d=-c^2$. Using the contour line method, the length, width, and area of the RW at height $c^2+d (0<d<8c^2)$ , i.e. above the asymptotic plane, are defined. We study the evolutions of three above-mentioned localization characters on $d$ through analytical and visual methods. The phase difference between the Kundu-Eckhaus and the nonlinear Schrodinger equation is also given by an explicit formula.