SUEMATSU Nobuhiko    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences    Position   Professor
Language	English
Publication Date	2013/06
Type	Academic Journal
Peer Review	Peer reviewed
Title	Mechanism of spiral formation in heterogeneous discretized excitable media
Contribution Type	Co-authored (other than first author)
Journal	Physical Review E
Volume, Issue, Page	87,pp.062815
Details	Spiral waves on excitable media strongly influence the functions of living systems in both a positive and negative way. The spiral formation mechanism has thus been one of the major themes in the field of reaction-diffusion systems. Although the widely believed origin of spiral waves is the interaction of traveling waves, the heterogeneity of an excitable medium has recently been suggested as a probable cause. We suggest one possible origin of spiral waves using a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and a discretized FitzHugh-Nagumo model. The heterogeneity of the reaction field is shown to stochastically generate unidirectional sites, which can induce spiral waves. Furthermore, we found that the spiral wave vanished with only a small reduction in the excitability of the reaction field. These results reveal a gentle approach for controlling the appearance of a spiral wave on an excitable medium.
DOI	http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.87.062815