Control of space-time chaos in a system of equations of the FitzHugh–Nagumo type

Abstract

We perform an analytic and numerical study of a system of partial differential equations that describes the propagation of nerve impulses in the heart muscle. We show that, for fixed parameter values, the system has infinitely many distinct stable wave solutions running along the spatial axis at arbitrary velocities and infinitely many distinct modes of space-time chaos, where the bifurcation parameter is the velocity of running wave propagation along the spatial axis, which does not explicitly occur in the original system of equations. We suggest an algorithm for controlling the space-time chaos in the system, which permits one to stabilize any of its unstable periodic running waves.