title: Unpinning of scroll waves under the influence of a thermal gradient.
abstract: Three-dimensional scroll waves of electrical activity are among the mechanisms believed to be responsible for the rapid, unsynchronized contraction of cardiac ventricles, thereby reducing the heart's ability to pump blood. Scroll waves can attach themselves to unexcitable obstacles, and this sometimes highly elongates their life span. Hence, the unpinning and annihilation of these vortices has attracted much attention in recent decades. In this work, we study the influence of a thermal gradient on scroll waves pinned to inert obstacles, in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Under a temperature gradient, scroll rings were seen to unpin from these obstacles, thus strikingly reducing their lifetimes. These results were also reproduced by numerical simulations using the Barkley model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India.
authors.forename: Nirmali Prabha
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Das
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India.
authors.forename: Dhriti
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mahanta
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, India.
authors.forename: Sumana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dutta
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004560:Electricity; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D013696:Temperature