SPIRAL COMPETITION IN 3-COMPONENT EXCITABLE MEDIA

Citation
I. Aranson et al., SPIRAL COMPETITION IN 3-COMPONENT EXCITABLE MEDIA, Physical review letters, 76(7), 1996, pp. 1170-1173
Citations number
20
Categorie Soggetti
Physics
Journal title
ISSN journal
00319007
Volume
76
Issue
7
Year of publication
1996
Pages
1170 - 1173
Database
ISI
SICI code
0031-9007(1996)76:7<1170:SCI3EM>2.0.ZU;2-W
Abstract
Excitable wave patterns consisting of large coherent spirals are obser ved during the aggregation of Dictyostelium amoebae. These emerge from an initially disordered state which arises via random cell firing. In this work, we show that this phenomenon can be understood as being du e to a specific spiral competition instability which occurs in certain three-component excitable medium models. This instability can be unde rstood as symmetry breaking of a spiral pair leading to one spiral sup pressing and expelling another.