Defects and traveling-wave states in nonequilibrium patterns with broken parity

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Abstract
A class of elementary defects of one-dimensional periodic patterns found far from equilibrium is described. They are ‘‘spatiotemporal grain boundaries’’ between regions in which the parity symmetry of the cellular pattern is broken in the opposite of two senses. The defect cores act as sources or sinks of traveling waves and cellular structures by means of a periodic phase instability closely related to ‘‘phase slips’’ in superconducting wires. An explanation for observations of annihilating collisions between two finite domains of opposite broken parity follows from these results.