Rings on strings in excitable media

Maucher, Fabian; Sutcliffe, Paul

Abstract

We study the dynamics and interaction of coaxial vortex rings in the FitzHugh–Nagumo excitable medium. We find that threading vortex rings with a vortex string results in significant qualitative differences in their evolution and interaction. In particular, threading prevents the annihilation of rings in a head-on collision, allows generic ring overtaking, and can even reverse the direction of motion of a ring. We identify that an important mechanism for producing this new behaviour is that threaded vortex rings interact indirectly via induced twisting of the threading vortex string.

Citation

Maucher, F., & Sutcliffe, P. (2018). Rings on strings in excitable media. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 51(5), Article 055102. https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/aaa1ba

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 11, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jan 5, 2018
• Publication Date: Feb 2, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jan 15, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 5, 2019
• Journal: Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical
• Print ISSN: 1751-8113
• Electronic ISSN: 1751-8121
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 5
• Article Number: 055102
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/aaa1ba
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1341493
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04693