title: Refraction of scroll-wave filaments at the boundary between two reaction-diffusion media.
abstract: We explore the shape and the dynamics of scroll-wave filaments in excitable media with an abruptly changing diffusion tensor, important for cardiac applications. We show that, similar to a beam of light, the filament refracts at the boundary separating domains with different diffusion. We derive the laws of filament refraction and test their validity in computational experiments. We discovered that at small angles to the interface, the filament can become unstable and develop oscillations. The nature of the observed instabilities, as well as overall theoretical and experimental significance of the findings, is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23528, USA and Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics, Norfolk, Virginia 23508, USA.
authors.forename: Christian W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Zemlin
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23528, USA and Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics, Norfolk, Virginia 23508, USA.
authors.forename: Frency
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Varghese
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA.
authors.forename: Marcel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wellner
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, New York 13210, USA.
authors.forename: Arkady M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Pertsov
mesh_terms: D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000503:physiopathology; D004058:Diffusion; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D008962:Models, Theoretical