Wave Instabilities in Excitable Media with Fast Inhibitor Diffusion

Abstract

An excitable activator-inhibitor system with relatively fast inhibitor diffusion is considered. Numerical simulations of wave propagation inside long channels show transitions from stable flat traveling waves to folded waves and further to spreading spiral turbulence as the inhibitor diffusivity is increased. For sufficiently narrow channels the suppression of turbulence and the development of regular steadily propagating patterns is observed. The curvature dependence of the wave propagation velocity is derived and used to interpret the observed phenomena.