Dresden 2006 – scientific programme
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SYSS: Structure Formation and Self-Organization in non-equilibrium Systems
SYSS 3: Structure Formation and Self-Organization in non-equilibrium Systems - Poster
SYSS 3.13: Poster
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 16:00–18:00, P1
Meandering instability of a scroll wave in a chemical excitable medium — •Chaiya Luengviriya1, Ulrich Storb1, Gert Lindner2, Markus Bär2,3, and Stefan C. Müller1 — 1Institute for Experimental Physics, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany — 2Department for Mathematical Modelling and Data Analysis, PTB, Berlin — 3Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
Spiral waves are a characteristic feature of dynamic structure formation in nonequilibrium systems. Until now, most studies on the meandering of such spirals have been performed in two-dimensional (2D) systems. We present an experimental work about meandering of such wave dynamics in the three-dimensional (3D) case rationalized by numerical simulations.
We studied experimentally a scroll wave in the excitable Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction by optical tomography. Therefore a scroll wave with a straight untwisted filament was initiated in the 3D experiment and observed in the course of time. This initial wave structure turned out to be unstable. After an intermediate exhibition of uniform twist, the filament took an oscillating zig-zag shaped state. For comparison with the behavior of a 2D spiral in the same medium we evaluated the wave period and the dynamics of the organizing centers (spiral tip for 2D and filament for 3D case). It turned out that this 2D spiral, if it exhibits the same period as the scroll wave in the 3D case, rotated rigidly.
The experimental findings were corrobated by 3D numerical simulations with the Barkley model suggesting that the observed filament behavior was caused by the 3D variant of the meandering instability.