Dynamics of spiral waves in perturbed, e. g. slightly inhomogeneous or
subject to a small periodic external force, two-dimensional autowave media can
be described asymptotically in terms of Aristotelean dynamics, so that the
velocities of the spiral wave drift in space and time are proportional to the
forces caused by the perturbation. The forces are defined as a convolution of
the perturbation with the spiral's Response Functions, which are eigenfunctions
of the adjoint linearised problem. In this paper we find numerically the
Response Functions of a spiral wave solution in the classic excitable
FitzHugh-Nagumo model, and show that they are effectively localised in the
vicinity of the spiral core.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure