Spiral anchoring in media with multiple inhomogeneities: a dynamical system approach (Q2463388)

Spiral waves are observed in a variety of experimental contexts, not last in BZ chemical reactions and cardiac dynamics (where electric potential spiral waves are believed to be a precursor to some fatal cardiac arythmias). In homogeneous isotropic media, spiral waves often emerge as solution to reaction-diffusion equations \(u_t = D \triangle u + f(u)\). When studying the effects of inhomogeneities, more general models should be considered, in particular adding terms explicitely depending on the spatial coordinate \(x\). In this paper, the authors consider \(x \in\mathbb R^2\) and a reaction-diffusion type problem with inhomogeneities due to ``sources'' at fixed points \(\zeta_i\) in the plane with independent amplitudes \(\lambda_i\). This is modelled through equations of the type \[ u_t = D_0 \triangle u + f(u) + \sum_{i=1}^n \lambda_i [ D_i (| | x - \zeta_i | | ^2,\lambda) \triangle u + f_i (| | x - \zeta_i | | ^2,\lambda) ] \tag \(*\) \] with \(D_i , f_i\) bounded and sufficiently regular functions. More generally, the authors consider abstract dynamical systems sharing the symmetry properties of \((*)\); thus depending on the control parameters \(\lambda_i\) in such a way that: (i) for all \(\lambda_i\) vanishing they have a \(SE(2)\) symmetry, (ii) when only one of these (say \(\lambda_1\)) is nonzero they have a circular symmetry around the corresponding source location \(\zeta_1\), and (iii) generically they have no nontrivial symmetry as soon as two or more of the \(\lambda_i\) is nonzero. A reduction to the center bundle near a hyperbolic rotating wave is first performed; the analysis of the equations reduced to this bundle allows then to reach the main result: spiral anchoring is generic in a parameter wedge. In the case \(n=2\) a visual criterion characterizing anchoring is also stated. Numerical experiments support the theoretical results.