Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 17: Reaction-diffusion systems

DY 17.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 15:15–15:30, ZEU 118

Validation of effective medium theory for heterogeneous reaction-diffusion systems — •Sergio Alonso¹, Raymond Kapral², and Markus Baer¹ — ¹Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Berlin, Germany — ²University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Fronts and travelling waves are spatiotemporal structures observed in nonlinear chemical and biological systems. Experiments in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, catalysis and in cardiac tissue show that the properties of the waves are affected by heterogeneities and deformations which hinder the stable propagation. Numerical models usually assume spatially homogeneous systems, and do not consider any type of defect. There are, however, also models of biological processes where heterogeneous reaction-diffusion equations have been employed. Here we propose and effective medium theory for reaction-diffusion systems which relate both types of approaches. We compare the predictions of the theory with numerical simulations in different types of randomly heterogeneous media.