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This paper presents a nonlinear reaction-diffusion-fluid system that simulates radiofrequency ablation within cardiac tissue. The model conveys the dynamic evolution of temperature and electric potential in both the fluid and solid regions, along with the evolution of velocity within the solid region. By formulating the system that describes the phenomena across the entire domain, encompassing both solid and fluid phases, we proceed to an analysis of well-posedness, considering a broad class of right-hand side terms. The system involves parameters such as heat conductivity, kinematic viscosity, and electrical conductivity, all of which exhibit nonlinearity contingent upon the temperature variable. The mathematical analysis extends to establishing the existence of a global solution, employing the Faedo-Galerkin method in a three-dimensional space. To enhance the practical applicability of our theoretical results, we complement our study with a series of numerical experiments. We implement the discrete system using the finite element method for spatial discretization and an Euler scheme for temporal discretization. Nonlinear parameters are linearized through decoupling systems, as introduced in our continuous analysis. These experiments are conducted to demonstrate and validate the theoretical findings we have established.

A nonlinear cross-diffusion--fluid system with chemical terms describing the dynamics of predator-prey living in a Newtonian fluid is proposed in this paper. The existence of a weak solution for the proposed macro-scale system is proved based on the Schauder fixed-point theory, a priori estimates, and compactness arguments. The proposed system is derived from the underlying description delivered by a kinetic-fluid theory model by a multiscale approach. Finally, we discuss the computational results for the proposed macro-scale system in two-dimensional space.

This paper deals with the mathematical analysis and numerical simulation of a new nonlinear ablation system modeling radiofrequency ablation phenomena in cardiac tissue, {which incorporates the effects of blood flow on the heat generated when ablation by radiofrequency. The model also considers the effects of viscous energy dissipation. It consists of a coupled thermistor problem and the incompressible Navier--Stokes equations that describe the evolution of temperature, velocity and potential in cardiac tissue.} In addition to Faedo--Galerkin method, we use Schauder's fixed-point theory to prove the existence of the weak solutions in two- and three-dimensional space. Moreover, we prove the uniqueness of the solution under some additional conditions on the data and the solution. Finally, we discuss some numerical results for the validation of the proposed model using the finite element method.

We analyze a system of nonlinear stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) of mixed elliptic-parabolic type that models the propagation of electric signals and their effect on the deformation of cardiac tissue. The system governs the dynamics of ionic quantities, intra and extra-cellular potentials, and linearized elasticity equations. We introduce a framework called the active strain decomposition, which factors the material gradient of deformation into an active (electrophysiology-dependent) part and an elastic (passive) part, to capture the coupling between muscle contraction, biochemical reactions, and electric activity. Under the assumption of linearized elastic behavior and a truncation of the nonlinear diffusivities, we propose a stochastic electromechanical bidomain model, and establish the existence of weak solutions for this model. To prove existence through the convergence of approximate solutions, we employ a stochastic compactness method in tandem with an auxiliary non-degenerate system and the Faedo--Galerkin method. We utilize a stochastic adaptation of de Rham's theorem to deduce the weak convergence of the pressure approximations.

This paper is devoted to the mathematical analysis of a nonlinear stochastic reaction-diffusion system modeling predator-prey interactions with prey-taxis and noises. Precisely, we detail the proof of the existence of weak martingale solutions by Faedo-Galerkin approximations and the stochastic compactness method. We prove the nonnegativity of solutions by a stochastic adaptation of the Stampacchia approach. Finally, we prove the uniqueness of the solution via duality technique.

We study the homogenization of a novel microscopic tridomain system, allowing for a more detailed analysis of the properties of cardiac conduction than the classical bidomain and monodomain models. In (Acta Appl.Math. 179 (2022) 1--35), we detail this model in which gap junctions are considered as the connections between adjacent cells in cardiac muscle and could serve as alternative or supporting pathways for cell-to-cell electrical signal propagation. Departing from this microscopic cellular model, we apply the periodic unfolding method to derive the macroscopic tridomain model. Several difficulties prevent the application of unfolding homogenization results, including the degenerate temporal structure of the tridomain equations and a nonlinear dynamic boundary condition on the cellular membrane. To prove the convergence of the nonlinear terms, especially those defined on the microscopic interface, we use the boundary unfolding operator and a Kolmogorov--Riesz compactness's result., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2201.03914

We present a novel microscopic tridomain model describing the electrical activity in cardiac tissue with dynamical gap junctions. The microscopic tridomain system consists of three PDEs modeling the tissue electrical conduction in the intra-and extra-cellular domains, supplemented by a nonlinear ODE system for the dynamics of the ion channels and the gap junctions. We establish the global existence and uniqueness of the weak solutions to our microscopic tridomain model. The global existence of solution, which constitutes the main result of this paper, is proved by means of an approximate non-degenerate system, the Faedo-Galerkin method, and an appropriate compactness argument.

In this paper, we are dealing with a rigorous homogenization result at two different levels for the bidomain model of cardiac electro-physiology. The first level associated with the mesoscopic structure such that the cardiac tissue consists of extracellular and intracellular domains separated by an interface (the sarcolemma). The second one related to the microscopic structure in such a way that the intracellular medium can only be viewed as a periodical layout of unit cells (mitochondria). At the interface between intra-and extracellular media, the fluxes are given by nonlinear functions of ionic and applied currents. A rigorous homogenization process based on unfolding operators is applied to derive the macroscopic (homogenized) model from our meso-microscopic bidomain model. We apply a three-scale unfolding method in the intracellular problem to obtain its homogenized equation at two levels. The first level upscaling of the intracellular structure yields the mesoscopic equation. The second step of the homogenization leads to obtain the intracellular homogenized equation. To prove the convergence of the nonlinear terms, especially those defined on the microscopic interface, we use the boundary unfolding method and a Kolmogorov-Riesz compactness's result. Next, we use the standard unfolding method to homogenize the extracellular problem. Finally, we obtain, at the limit, a reaction-diffusion system on a single domain (the superposition of the intracellular and extracellular media) which contains the homogenized equations depending on three scales. Such a model is widely used for describing the macroscopic behavior of the cardiac tissue, which is recognized to be an important messengers between the cytoplasm (intracellular) and the other extracellular inside the biological cells. Contents 2020 Mathematics Subject Classification. 65N55 and 35A01 and 35B27 and 35K57 and 65M.., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2201.03412

In the present paper, a new three-scale asymptotic homogenization method is proposed to study the electrical behavior of the cardiac tissue structure with multiple heterogeneities at two different levels. The first level is associated with the mesoscopic structure such that the cardiac tissue is composed of extracellular and intracellular domains. The second level is associated with the microscopic structure in such a way the intracellular medium can only be viewed as a periodical layout of unit cells (mitochondria). Then, we define two kinds of local cells that are obtained by upscaling methods. The homogenization method is based on a power series expansion which allows determining the macroscopic (homogenized) bidomain model from the microscopic bidomain problem at each structural level. First, we use the two-scale asymptotic expansion to homogenize the extracellular problem. Then, we apply a three-scale asymptotic expansion in the intracellular problem to obtain its homogenized equation at two levels. The first upscaling level of the intracellular structure yields the mesoscopic equation and the second step of the homogenization leads to obtain the intracellular homogenized equation. Both the mesoscopic and microscopic information is obtained by homogenization to capture local characteristics inside the cardiac tissue structure. Finally, we obtain the macroscopic bidomain model and the heart domain coincides with the intracellular medium and extracellular one, which are two inter-penetrating and superimposed continua connected at each point by the cardiac cellular membrane. The interest of the proposed method comes from the fact that it combines microscopic and mesoscopic characteristics to obtain a macroscopic description of the electrical behavior of the heart.

We present a Virtual Element Method (VEM) for a nonlocal reaction-diffusion system of the cardiac electric field. To this system, we analyze an $H^1(\Omega)$-conforming discretization by means of VEM which can make use of general polygonal meshes. Under standard assumptions on the computational domain, we establish the convergence of the discrete solution by considering a series of a priori estimates and by using a general $L^p$ compactness criterion. Moreover, we obtain optimal order space-time error estimates in the $L^2$ norm. Finally, we report some numerical tests supporting the theoretical results.

The bidomain system of degenerate reaction-diffusion equations is a well-established spatial model of electrical activity in cardiac tissue, with "reaction" linked to the cellular action potential and "diffusion" representing current flow between cells. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a "stochastically forced" version of the bidomain model that accounts for various random effects. We establish the existence of martingale (probabilistic weak) solutions to the stochastic bidomain model. The result is proved by means of an auxiliary nondegenerate system and the Faedo-Galerkin method. To prove convergence of the approximate solutions, we use the stochastic compactness method and Skorokhod-Jakubowski a.s.~representations. Finally, via a pathwise uniqueness result, we conclude that the martingale solutions are pathwise (i.e., probabilistic strong) solutions.