859 research outputs found
Breathers on lattices with long range interaction
We analyze the properties of breathers (time periodic spatially localized
solutions) on chains in the presence of algebraically decaying interactions
. We find that the spatial decay of a breather shows a crossover from
exponential (short distances) to algebraic (large distances) decay. We
calculate the crossover distance as a function of and the energy of the
breather. Next we show that the results on energy thresholds obtained for short
range interactions remain valid for and that for (anomalous
dispersion at the band edge) nonzero thresholds occur for cases where the short
range interaction system would yield zero threshold values.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, PRB Rapid Comm. October 199
The phase plane of moving discrete breathers
We study anharmonic localization in a periodic five atom chain with
quadratic-quartic spring potential. We use discrete symmetries to eliminate the
degeneracies of the harmonic chain and easily find periodic orbits. We apply
linear stability analysis to measure the frequency of phonon-like disturbances
in the presence of breathers and to analyze the instabilities of breathers. We
visualize the phase plane of breather motion directly and develop a technique
for exciting pinned and moving breathers. We observe long-lived breathers that
move chaotically and a global transition to chaos that prevents forming moving
breathers at high energies.Comment: 8 pages text, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters. See
http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/localization
Slow Relaxation and Phase Space Properties of a Conservative System with Many Degrees of Freedom
We study the one-dimensional discrete model. We compare two
equilibrium properties by use of molecular dynamics simulations: the Lyapunov
spectrum and the time dependence of local correlation functions. Both
properties imply the existence of a dynamical crossover of the system at the
same temperature. This correlation holds for two rather different regimes of
the system - the displacive and intermediate coupling regimes. Our results
imply a deep connection between slowing down of relaxations and phase space
properties of complex systems.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, 10 Figures available upon request (SF), Phys. Rev.
E, accepted for publicatio
On the Existence of Localized Excitations in Nonlinear Hamiltonian Lattices
We consider time-periodic nonlinear localized excitations (NLEs) on
one-dimensional translationally invariant Hamiltonian lattices with arbitrary
finite interaction range and arbitrary finite number of degrees of freedom per
unit cell. We analyse a mapping of the Fourier coefficients of the NLE
solution. NLEs correspond to homoclinic points in the phase space of this map.
Using dimensionality properties of separatrix manifolds of the mapping we show
the persistence of NLE solutions under perturbations of the system, provided
NLEs exist for the given system. For a class of nonintegrable Fermi-Pasta-Ulam
chains we rigorously prove the existence of NLE solutions.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures will be mailed upon request (Phys. Rev. E,
in press
Energy thresholds for discrete breathers in one-, two- and three-dimensional lattices
Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of
equations of motion for classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice.
They come in one-parameter families. We report on studies of energy properties
of breather families in one-, two- and three-dimensional lattices. We show that
breather energies have a positive lower bound if the lattice dimension of a
given nonlinear lattice is greater than or equal to a certain critical value.
These findings could be important for the experimental detection of discrete
breathers.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures (ps), Physical Review Letters, in prin
Dimension dependent energy thresholds for discrete breathers
Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the
equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on
a lattice. We study the existence of energy thresholds for discrete breathers,
i.e., the question whether, in a certain system, discrete breathers of
arbitrarily low energy exist, or a threshold has to be overcome in order to
excite a discrete breather. Breather energies are found to have a positive
lower bound if the lattice dimension d is greater than or equal to a certain
critical value d_c, whereas no energy threshold is observed for d<d_c. The
critical dimension d_c is system dependent and can be computed explicitly,
taking on values between zero and infinity. Three classes of Hamiltonian
systems are distinguished, being characterized by different mechanisms
effecting the existence (or non-existence) of an energy threshold.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Discrete breathers in classical spin lattices
Discrete breathers (nonlinear localised modes) have been shown to exist in
various nonlinear Hamiltonian lattice systems. In the present paper we study
the dynamics of classical spins interacting via Heisenberg exchange on spatial
-dimensional lattices (with and without the presence of single-ion
anisotropy). We show that discrete breathers exist for cases when the continuum
theory does not allow for their presence (easy-axis ferromagnets with
anisotropic exchange and easy-plane ferromagnets). We prove the existence of
localised excitations using the implicit function theorem and obtain necessary
conditions for their existence. The most interesting case is the easy-plane one
which yields excitations with locally tilted magnetisation. There is no
continuum analogue for such a solution and there exists an energy threshold for
it, which we have estimated analytically. We support our analytical results
with numerical high-precision computations, including also a stability analysis
for the excitations.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure
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
Topological discrete kinks
A spatially discrete version of the general kink-bearing nonlinear
Klein-Gordon model in (1+1) dimensions is constructed which preserves the
topological lower bound on kink energy. It is proved that, provided the lattice
spacing h is sufficiently small, there exist static kink solutions attaining
this lower bound centred anywhere relative to the spatial lattice. Hence there
is no Peierls-Nabarro barrier impeding the propagation of kinks in this
discrete system. An upper bound on h is derived and given a physical
interpretation in terms of the radiation of the system. The construction, which
works most naturally when the nonlinear Klein-Gordon model has a squared
polynomial interaction potential, is applied to a recently proposed continuum
model of polymer twistons. Numerical simulations are presented which
demonstrate that kink pinning is eliminated, and radiative kink deceleration
greatly reduced in comparison with the conventional discrete system. So even on
a very coarse lattice, kinks behave much as they do in the continuum. It is
argued, therefore, that the construction provides a natural means of
numerically simulating kink dynamics in nonlinear Klein-Gordon models of this
type. The construction is compared with the inverse method of Flach, Zolotaryuk
and Kladko. Using the latter method, alternative spatial discretizations of the
twiston and sine-Gordon models are obtained which are also free of the
Peierls-Nabarro barrier.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX, 7 postscript figure
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