Spiral wave drift in an electric field and scroll wave instabilities

The numerical computation of speed and direction of spiral wave drift in an excitable medium in presence of electrical field, was described. It was observed that drift speed presents a strong variation close to parameter value where drift-speed component along the field direction from parallel becomes antiparallel. This behavior can be attributed to a resonance of the meander modes with translation modes of spiral waves using a phenomenological model and results of numerical linear stability analysis of scroll waves. The results show that extension of phenomenological model to scroll waves clarifies the link between drift and long wavelength instabilities of scroll waves.