Mechanism of Standing Wave Patterns in Cardiac Muscle

Recent experiments [R. A. Gray et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 168104 (2001)] have revealed striking standing wave patterns in cardiac muscle. In excitable media, such as cardiac tissue where colliding waves annihilate, standing wave patterns result from a fully nonlinear mechanism. We present a possible physical mechanism explaining these patterns. The phenomenon does not depend on the precise excitable model chosen. Analogies are drawn with weak links in superconductors, and phase-slip solutions in the Ginzburg-Landau equations.