Evidence for Burgers' equation describing the untwisting of scroll rings

We study the dynamics of rotating scroll waves in three-dimensional excitable systems. Experiments are carried out with the 1,4-cyclohexanedione Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and wave patterns are measured using optical tomography. We create twisted scroll rings for which the rotation phase varies a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Europhysics letters 2008-08, Vol.83 (3), p.30010
Main Authors: Marts, B, Bánsági, T, Steinbock, O
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
05.45.-a
82.40.Ck
82.40.Qt
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We study the dynamics of rotating scroll waves in three-dimensional excitable systems. Experiments are carried out with the 1,4-cyclohexanedione Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and wave patterns are measured using optical tomography. We create twisted scroll rings for which the rotation phase varies along their circular rotation backbone and measure the untwisting dynamics of the collapsing structures. Experimental data reveal the formation of an asymmetric, plateau-like phase profile with a growing region of leading phase and a shrinking region of lagging phase. The experimental data support a quantitative description in terms of a nonlinear diffusion equation.
ISSN:0295-5075
1286-4854
DOI:10.1209/0295-5075/83/30010