1,299 research outputs found
Discrete Breathers
Nonlinear classical Hamiltonian lattices exhibit generic solutions in the
form of discrete breathers. These solutions are time-periodic and (typically
exponentially) localized in space. The lattices exhibit discrete translational
symmetry. Discrete breathers are not confined to certain lattice dimensions.
Necessary ingredients for their occurence are the existence of upper bounds on
the phonon spectrum (of small fluctuations around the groundstate) of the
system as well as the nonlinearity in the differential equations. We will
present existence proofs, formulate necessary existence conditions, and discuss
structural stability of discrete breathers. The following results will be also
discussed: the creation of breathers through tangent bifurcation of band edge
plane waves; dynamical stability; details of the spatial decay; numerical
methods of obtaining breathers; interaction of breathers with phonons and
electrons; movability; influence of the lattice dimension on discrete breather
properties; quantum lattices - quantum breathers. Finally we will formulate a
new conceptual aproach capable of predicting whether discrete breather exist
for a given system or not, without actually solving for the breather. We
discuss potential applications in lattice dynamics of solids (especially
molecular crystals), selective bond excitations in large molecules, dynamical
properties of coupled arrays of Josephson junctions, and localization of
electromagnetic waves in photonic crystals with nonlinear response.Comment: 62 pages, LaTeX, 14 ps figures. Physics Reports, to be published; see
also at http://www.mpipks-dresden.mpg.de/~flach/html/preprints.htm
Quantum discrete breathers
We review recent studies about quantum discrete breathers. We describe their
basic properties in comparison with their classical counterparts, and the ways
they may be addressed theoretically in different quantum lattice models
including either bosonic or fermionic excitations. We also review recent
experimental work in the field.Comment: 49 pages, 36 figures, some corrected typos, and the section
"Conclusions and outlook" was added. Chapter for a book edited by S.
Keshavamurthy and P. Schlagheck with title "Dynamical Tunneling: Theory and
Experiment
Discrete Nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger Breathers in a Phonon Bath
We study the dynamics of the discrete nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger lattice
initialized such that a very long transitory period of time in which standard
Boltzmann statistics is insufficient is reached. Our study of the nonlinear
system locked in this {\em non-Gibbsian} state focuses on the dynamics of
discrete breathers (also called intrinsic localized modes). It is found that
part of the energy spontaneously condenses into several discrete breathers.
Although these discrete breathers are extremely long lived, their total number
is found to decrease as the evolution progresses. Even though the total number
of discrete breathers decreases we report the surprising observation that the
energy content in the discrete breather population increases. We interpret
these observations in the perspective of discrete breather creation and
annihilation and find that the death of a discrete breather cause effective
energy transfer to a spatially nearby discrete breather. It is found that the
concepts of a multi-frequency discrete breather and of internal modes is
crucial for this process. Finally, we find that the existence of a discrete
breather tends to soften the lattice in its immediate neighborhood, resulting
in high amplitude thermal fluctuation close to an existing discrete breather.
This in turn nucleates discrete breather creation close to a already existing
discrete breather
Nonintegrable Schrodinger Discrete Breathers
In an extensive numerical investigation of nonintegrable translational motion
of discrete breathers in nonlinear Schrodinger lattices, we have used a
regularized Newton algorithm to continue these solutions from the limit of the
integrable Ablowitz-Ladik lattice. These solutions are shown to be a
superposition of a localized moving core and an excited extended state
(background) to which the localized moving pulse is spatially asymptotic. The
background is a linear combination of small amplitude nonlinear resonant plane
waves and it plays an essential role in the energy balance governing the
translational motion of the localized core. Perturbative collective variable
theory predictions are critically analyzed in the light of the numerical
results.Comment: 42 pages, 28 figures. to be published in CHAOS (December 2004
Impulse-induced localized nonlinear modes in an electrical lattice
Intrinsic localized modes, also called discrete breathers, can exist under
certain conditions in one-dimensional nonlinear electrical lattices driven by
external harmonic excitations. In this work, we have studied experimentally the
efectiveness of generic periodic excitations of variable waveform at generating
discrete breathers in such lattices. We have found that this generation
phenomenon is optimally controlled by the impulse transmitted by the external
excitation (time integral over two consecutive zerosComment: 5 pages, 8 figure
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
Low-frequency discrete breathers in long-range systems without on-site potential
We propose a new mechanism of long-range coupling to excite low-frequency
discrete breathers without the on-site potential. This mechanism is universal
in long-range systems irrespective of the spatial boundary conditions, of
topology of the inner degree of freedom, and of precise forms of the coupling
functions. The limit of large population is theoretically discussed for the
periodic boundary condition. Existence of discrete breathers is numerically
demonstrated with stability analysis.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Surface breathers in discrete magnetic metamaterials
We analyze the properties of discrete breathers excited near the edge of a one-dimensional metamaterial created by a truncated array of nonlinear split-ring resonators. We study a crossover between nonlinear surface states and discrete breathers by analyzing the modes centered at finite distances from the array edge and demonstrate the existence of a class of nonlinear localized surface states, the so-called nonlinear Tamm states or surface breathers, which exhibit features that have no counterparts either in the continuous systems or in linear arrays
Discrete breathers in dissipative lattices
We study the properties of discrete breathers, also known as intrinsic
localized modes, in the one-dimensional Frenkel-Kontorova lattice of
oscillators subject to damping and external force. The system is studied in the
whole range of values of the coupling parameter, from C=0 (uncoupled limit) up
to values close to the continuum limit (forced and damped sine-Gordon model).
As this parameter is varied, the existence of different bifurcations is
investigated numerically. Using Floquet spectral analysis, we give a complete
characterization of the most relevant bifurcations, and we find (spatial)
symmetry-breaking bifurcations which are linked to breather mobility, just as
it was found in Hamiltonian systems by other authors. In this way moving
breathers are shown to exist even at remarkably high levels of discreteness. We
study mobile breathers and characterize them in terms of the phonon radiation
they emit, which explains successfully the way in which they interact. For
instance, it is possible to form ``bound states'' of moving breathers, through
the interaction of their phonon tails. Over all, both stationary and moving
breathers are found to be generic localized states over large values of ,
and they are shown to be robust against low temperature fluctuations.Comment: To be published in Physical Review
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