On the steadily rotating spirals (Q2493485)

The authors investigate an autonomous system of two first-order ordinary differential equations, representing rotating spiral wave patterns observed in many spatio-temporal evolutions of excitable systems. The sharply located spiral wave fronts are modeled as planar curves. To simplify the analysis, the kinematic theory of spiral waves is used instead of the reaction-diffusion system. The spiral tip rotates along a circle with a constant positive rotation frequency. The complete classification of solutions to this system is obtained, with the rotation frequency used as a parameter. The authors obtain results for spirals with positive curvature, as well as spiral wave solutions with sign-changing curvature and with negative curvature.