Spiral breakup in a RD system of cardiac excitation due to front–back interaction

Abstract

We consider a two-variable partial differential equations model of cardiac excitation and study spiral wave instability in a one-parameter family of solutions. We investigate numerically the existence of periodic traveling wave solution and show the front and the back interaction far away from the bifurcation point in one dimension. In two dimensions, we show the emergence of a stable spiral pattern before the bifurcation point. The most complex spatiotemporal pattern is called ventricular fibrillation when the breakup of one spiral wave makes another wave and the medium becomes chaotic. We show spiral wave instability and periodic traveling wave instability in the same computational settings. It is found that the pattern of the front–back interaction in two dimensions is similar with that of in the one dimension.