Excitable media in a chaotic flow

The response to a localized perturbation of an excitable medium under stirring by chaotic advection is investigated. It is found that below a critical stirring rate a localized perturbation produces a coherent global excitation of the system. For very slow stirring, however, the coherence of the global excitation is gradually lost. We propose a simple model to describe the effect of the flow on the excitable dynamics, and explain the observed behavior as a consequence of a steady excited filament state found in the reduced problem.