Excitation wave breaking
in excitable media with linear shear flow

V. N. Biktashev[*], A. V. Holden, M. A. Tsyganov[]
(Department of Physiology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)
J. Brindley, N. A. Hill
(Department of Applied Mathematics,University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK)

Submitted 1998/03/30, Accepted 1998/08/12

Abstract:

If an excitable medium is moving with relative shear, the waves of excitation may be broken by the motion. We consider such breaks for the case of a constant linear shear flow. The mechanisms and conditions for the breaking of solitary waves and wavetrains are essentially different: the solitary waves require the velocity gradient to exceed a certain threshold, whilst the breaking of repetitive wavetrains happens for arbitrarily small velocity gradients.

PACS: 47.70.Fw, 82.40.Bj, 82.40.Ck, 87.10.+e, 87.22.As, 92.20.Jt, 92.20.Rb

• Introduction
• Plane waves in linear shear flows
• Solitary wave blocking
• Periodic wave conduction block
• Numerical illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• References