No Arabic abstract
When propagated action potentials in cardiac tissue interact with local heterogeneities, reflected waves can sometimes be induced. These reflected waves have been associated with the onset of cardiac arrhythmias, and while their generation is not well understood, their existence is linked to that of one-dimensional (1D) spiral waves. Thus, understanding the existence and stability of 1D spirals plays a crucial role in determining the likelihood of the unwanted reflected pulses. Mathematically, we probe these issues by viewing the 1D spiral as a time-periodic antisymmetric source defect. Through a combination of direct numerical simulation and continuation methods, we investigate existence and stability of a 1D spiral wave in a qualitative ionic model to determine how the systems propensity for reflections are influenced by system parameters. Our results support and extend a previous hypothesis that the 1D spiral is an unstable periodic orbit that emerges through a global rearrangement of heteroclinic orbits and we identify key parameters and physiological processes that promote and deter reflection behavior.
In this paper we present the results of parallel numerical computations of the long-term dynamics of linked vortex filaments in a three-dimensional FitzHugh-Nagumo excitable medium. In particular, we study all torus links with no more than 12 crossings and identify a timescale over which the dynamics is regular in the sense that each link is well-described by a spinning rigid conformation of fixed size that propagates at constant speed along the axis of rotation. We compute the properties of these links and demonstrate that they have a simple dependence on the crossing number of the link for a fixed number of link components. Furthermore, we find that instabilities that exist over longer timescales in the bulk can be removed by boundary interactions that yield stable torus links which settle snugly at the medium boundary. The Borromean rings are used as an example of a non-torus link to demonstrate both the irregular tumbling dynamics that arises in the bulk and its suppression by a tight confining medium. Finally, we investigate the collision of torus links and reveal that this produces a complicated wrestling motion where one torus link can eventually dominate over the other by pushing it into the boundary of the medium.
Recent work has explored binary waveguide arrays in the long-wavelength, near-continuum limit, here we examine the opposite limit, namely the vicinity of the so-called anti-continuum limit. We provide a systematic discussion of states involving one, two and three excited waveguides, and provide comparisons that illustrate how the stability of these states differ from the monoatomic limit of a single type of waveguide. We do so by developing a general theory which systematically tracks down the key eigenvalues of the linearized system. When we find the states to be unstable, we explore their dynamical evolution through direct numerical simulations. The latter typically illustrate, for the parameter values considered herein, the persistence of localized dynamics and the emergence for the duration of our simulations of robust quasi-periodic states for two excited sites. As the number of excited nodes increase, the unstable dynamics feature less regular oscillations of the solutions amplitude.
A free vortex in excitable media can be displaced and removed by a wave-train. However, simple physical arguments suggest that vortices anchored to large inexcitable obstacles cannot be removed similarly. We show that unpinning of vortices attached to obstacles smaller than the core radius of the free vortex is possible through pacing. The wave-train frequency necessary for unpinning increases with the obstacle size and we present a geometric explanation of this dependence. Our model-independent results suggest that decreasing excitability of the medium can facilitate pacing-induced removal of vortices in cardiac tissue.
Small-world networks describe many important practical systems among which neural networks consisting of excitable nodes are the most typical ones. In this paper we study self-sustained oscillations of target waves in excitable small-world networks. A novel dominant phase-advanced driving (DPAD) method, which is generally applicable for analyzing all oscillatory complex networks consisting of nonoscillatory nodes, is proposed to reveal the self-organized structures supporting this type of oscillations. The DPAD method explicitly explores the oscillation sources and wave propagation paths of the systems, which are otherwise deeply hidden in the complicated patterns of randomly distributed target groups. Based on the understanding of the self-organized structure, the oscillatory patterns can be controlled with extremely high efficiency.
A thring is a recent addition to the zoo of spiral wave phenomena found in excitable media and consists of a scroll ring that is threaded by a pair of counter-rotating scroll waves. This arrangement behaves like a particle that swims through the medium. Here, we present the first results on the dynamics, interaction and collective behaviour of several thrings via numerical simulation of the reaction-diffusion equations that model thrings created in chemical experiments. We reveal an attraction between two thrings that leads to a stable bound pair that thwarts their individual locomotion. Furthermore, such a pair emits waves at a higher frequency than a single thring, which protects the pair from the advances of any other thring and rules out the formation of a triplet bound state. As a result, the long-term evolution of a colony of thrings ultimately yields an unusual frozen nonequilibrium state consisting of a collection of pairs accompanied by isolated thrings that are inhibited from further motion by the waves emanating from the pairs.