title: Universal scaling of wave propagation failure in arrays of coupled nonlinear cells
abstract: We study the onset of the propagation failure of wave fronts in systems of coupled cells. We introduce a new method to analyze the scaling of the critical external field at which fronts cease to propagate, as a function of intercellular coupling. We find the universal scaling of the field throughout the range of couplings and show that the field becomes exponentially small for large couplings. Our method is generic and applicable to a wide class of cellular dynamics in chemical, biological, and engineering systems. We confirm our results by direct numerical simulations.
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Division and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kladko
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mitkov
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Bishop