2 research outputs found
Tunneling of quantum rotobreathers
We analyze the quantum properties of a system consisting of two nonlinearly
coupled pendula. This non-integrable system exhibits two different symmetries:
a permutational symmetry (permutation of the pendula) and another one related
to the reversal of the total momentum of the system. Each of these symmetries
is responsible for the existence of two kinds of quasi-degenerated states. At
sufficiently high energy, pairs of symmetry-related states glue together to
form quadruplets. We show that, starting from the anti-continuous limit,
particular quadruplets allow us to construct quantum states whose properties
are very similar to those of classical rotobreathers. By diagonalizing
numerically the quantum Hamiltonian, we investigate their properties and show
that such states are able to store the main part of the total energy on one of
the pendula. Contrary to the classical situation, the coupling between pendula
necessarily introduces a periodic exchange of energy between them with a
frequency which is proportional to the energy splitting between
quasi-degenerated states related to the permutation symmetry. This splitting
may remain very small as the coupling strength increases and is a decreasing
function of the pair energy. The energy may be therefore stored in one pendulum
during a time period very long as compared to the inverse of the internal
rotobreather frequency.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, REVTeX4 styl