Spiral-wave breakup in strongly chaotic media with nonphase-coherent chaotic attractors is investigated. Spiral-wave dynamics is studied for the Rössler reaction diffusion equation as the local attractor changes from a phase-coherent to a funnel form. Stable spiral waves with an Archimedean structure are observed to persist even when the local chaotic attractor has a funnel form. The destruction of funnel spiral waves in strongly chaotic media is induced by the strong phase disturbance of the local nonlinear chaotic dynamics, which breaks the stable Archimedean spiral structure and globally destroys the spatial pattern.

• Received 8 November 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.73.026224