Journal Article

Dynamics of scroll waves pinned to tilted cylindrical obstacles in a simulated excitable system

Luengviriya, Chaiya, Khaothong, Kritsana, Nualpijit, Phusit, Luengviriya, Jiraporn, Chanchang, Vikanda

2025

Overview

Rotating spiral waves are dominant dynamical structures in thin layers of excitable media. The three-dimensional (3D) versions are known as scroll waves. For human health, they correspond to cardiac arrhythmia and life-threatening fibrillation. The scroll waves and the corresponding pathological conditions stay longer when they are pinned to unexcitable obstacles, e.g., blood vessels or scars in the heart. In this article, we present a simulation study of the dynamics of scroll waves partially pinned to cylindrical obstacles with varying tilted angles. A simple shaped (untwisted) scroll wave with a linear filament aligning in the vertical direction is generated as the initial conditions. An unexcitable volume with on-flux boundaries is defined as the tilted cylindrical obstacle. The obstacle is shorter than the system height, leaving the system above the obstacle unperturbed. At the beginning, only a small part of scroll wave filament located near the system bottom is pinned to the obstacle. In the course of time, the pinned part gradually advances along the obstacle and becomes twisted wave. After a transient time, the pinned scroll wave has a helical structure that wraps the whole obstacle while the freely rotating part of scroll wave above the obstacle remained untwisted. The transient time increases exponentially with the tilted angle.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: Barriers / Blood vessels / Cylindrical waves / Initial conditions / Rotation / Thin films