Global control of spiral wave dynamics in an excitable domain of circular and elliptical shape

Experiments performed in a thin layer of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky solution subjected to a global feedback demonstrate the existence of the resonance attractor for meandering spiral waves within a domain of circular shape. In an elliptical domain, the resonance attractor can be destroyed due to a saddle-node bifurcation induced by a variation of the domain eccentricity. This conclusion explains the experimentally observed anchoring of spiral waves at certain points of an elliptical domain and is in good quantitative agreement with numerical data obtained for the Oregonator model.