Ap. Munuzuri et al., ATTRACTION AND REPULSION OF SPIRAL WAVES BY LOCALIZED INHOMOGENEITIESIN EXCITABLE MEDIA, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics, 58(3), 1998, pp. 2689-2692
The anchoring and repelling of spiral waves in a two-dimensional homog
eneous excitable medium in the presence of a localized defect is studi
ed in the framework of a numerical model and the kinematical theory. D
epending on the relative initial distance between the obstacle and the
core center, the vortex is observed either to drift towards the obsta
cle or to move away from it. The anchoring phenomenon is explained in
terms of periodic perturbations of the front curvature, while the repu
lsion is rather connected with inhomogeneous refractoriness, which aff
ects the spiral tip motion.