Attraction of spiral waves by localized inhomogeneities with small-world connections in excitable media.

Trapping and untrapping of spiral tips in a two-dimensional homogeneous excitable medium with local small-world connections are studied by numerical simulation. In a homogeneous medium which can be simulated with a lattice of regular neighborhood connections, the spiral wave is in the meandering regime. When changing the topology of a small region from regular connections to small-world connections, the tip of the spiral waves is attracted by the small-world region, where the average path length declines with the introduction of long distant connections. The "trapped" phenomenon also occurs in regular lattices where the diffusion coefficient of the small region is increased. The above results can be explained by the eikonal equation, the Luther equation, and the relation between the core radius and the diffusion coefficient.