We consider an infinite chain of particles linearly coupled to their nearest
neighbours and subject to an anharmonic local potential. The chain is assumed
weakly inhomogeneous. We look for small amplitude discrete breathers. The
problem is reformulated as a nonautonomous recurrence in a space of
time-periodic functions, where the dynamics is considered along the discrete
spatial coordinate. We show that small amplitude oscillations are determined by
finite-dimensional nonautonomous mappings, whose dimension depends on the
solutions frequency. We consider the case of two-dimensional reduced mappings,
which occurs for frequencies close to the edges of the phonon band. For an
homogeneous chain, the reduced map is autonomous and reversible, and
bifurcations of reversible homoclinics or heteroclinic solutions are found for
appropriate parameter values. These orbits correspond respectively to discrete
breathers, or dark breathers superposed on a spatially extended standing wave.
Breather existence is shown in some cases for any value of the coupling
constant, which generalizes an existence result obtained by MacKay and Aubry at
small coupling. For an inhomogeneous chain the study of the nonautonomous
reduced map is in general far more involved. For the principal part of the
reduced recurrence, using the assumption of weak inhomogeneity, we show that
homoclinics to 0 exist when the image of the unstable manifold under a linear
transformation intersects the stable manifold. This provides a geometrical
understanding of tangent bifurcations of discrete breathers. The case of a mass
impurity is studied in detail, and our geometrical analysis is successfully
compared with direct numerical simulations
