COntrol of spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos with periodical subthreshold ordered wave perturbations

In this paper, we investigate the possibility to control the spiral waves and spatiotemporal chaos in an excitable media by subthreshold ordered waves, which is by definition in this paper the spatially ordered periodical subthreshold fluctuations of system variables. It is found that both the spiral wave and the spatiotemporal chaos could be driven out of the control domain by perturbation of periodical subthreshold ordered waves. The effective control time declines as the amplitude of subthreshold ordered waves are increased, or their frequencies are decreased. Furthermore, we show that the effectiveness of this method is also dependent on the spatial arrangement of the subthreshold ordered waves. We discuss the possible applications of this method, especially in the control of heart fibrillation.