Taming Winfree Turbulence of Scroll Waves in Excitable Media
Sergio Alonso,1
Francesc Sagués,1
Alexander S. Mikhailov2*
Winfree turbulence of scroll waves is a special
kind of spatiotemporal chaos that exists exclusively in
three-dimensional excitable media and is currently considered one of
the principal mechanisms of cardiac fibrillation. A chaotic wave
pattern develops through the negative-tension instability of vortex
filaments, which tend to spontaneously stretch, bend, loop, and produce
an expanding tangle that fills up the volume. We demonstrate that such
turbulence can readily be controlled by weak nonresonant modulation of
the medium excitability. Depending on the forcing frequency, either
suppression or induction of turbulence can be achieved.
1 Departament de Química
Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Avenida Diagonal 647, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
2 Abteilung Physikalische Chemie,
Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
mikhailov{at}fhi-berlin.mpg.de
