Termination of pinned spirals by local stimuli

The termination of pinned spirals on a defect by means of local stimuli is studied. On a completely unexcitable defect, the elimination process is discussed and its corresponding mechanism is presented. Especially, the mechanism of unpinning spirals on a partially unexcitable defect, which has not been investigated so far, is explored. With fixed pacing frequency ω L , there exists a maximal radius R max above which the pinned spiral cannot be removed. It is found that the value of R max does not increase as ω L in a dynamical regime, forming a platform in the R max - ω L curves. Based on analyzing the dispersion relation on the spiral tip around the obstacle, the underlying mechanism is clarified. Also, it is found that when multiple spirals are pinned, the value of R max decreases on a partially unexcitable defect while the change is very slight on a completely unexcitable one.