September 25, 1996
The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam $\alpha$-model of harmonic oscillators with cubic anharmonic interactions is studied from a statistical mechanical point of view. Systems of N= 32 to 128 oscillators appear to be large enough to suggest statistical mechanical behavior. A key element has been a comparison of the maximum Lyapounov coefficient $\lambda_{max}$ of the FPU $\alpha$-model and that of the Toda lattice. For generic initial conditions, $\lambda_{max}(t)$ is indistinguishable for the two models up to times that increase with decreasing energy (at fixed N). Then suddenly a bifurcation appears, which can be discussed in relation to the breakup of regular, soliton-like structures. After this bifurcation, the $\lambda_{max}$ of the FPU model appears to approach a constant, while the $\lambda_{max}$ of the Toda lattice appears to approach zero, consistent with its integrability. This suggests that for generic initial conditions the FPU $\alpha$-model is chaotic and will therefore approach equilibrium and equipartition of energy. There is, however, a threshold energy density $\epsilon_c(N)\sim 1/N^2$, below which trapping occurs; here the dynamics appears to be regular, soliton-like and the approach to equilibrium - if any - takes longer than observable on any available computer. Above this threshold the system appears to behave in accordance with statistical mechanics, exhibiting an approach to equilibrium in physically reasonable times. The initial conditions chosen by Fermi, Pasta and Ulam were not generic and below threshold and would have required possibly an infinite time to reach equilibrium.
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We introduce a generalized $d$-dimensional Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) model in presence of long-range interactions, and perform a first-principle study of its chaos for $d=1,2,3$ through large-scale numerical simulations. The nonlinear interaction is assumed to decay algebraically as $d_{ij}^{-\alpha}$ ($\alpha \ge 0$), $\{d_{ij}\}$ being the distances between $N$ oscillator sites. Starting from random initial conditions we compute the maximal Lyapunov exponent $\lambda_{max}$ as...
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FPU models, in dimension one, are perturbations either of the linear model or of the Toda model; perturbations of the linear model include the usual $\beta$-model, perturbations of Toda include the usual $\alpha+\beta$ model. In this paper we explore and compare two families, or hierarchies, of FPU models, closer and closer to either the linear or the Toda model, by computing numerically, for each model, the maximal Lyapunov exponent $\chi$. We study the asymptotics of $\chi$...
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We study the original $\alpha$-Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) system with $N=16,32$ and $64$ masses connected by a nonlinear quadratic spring. Our approach is based on resonant wave-wave interaction theory, i.e. we assume that, in the weakly nonlinear regime (the one in which Fermi was originally interested), the large time dynamics is ruled by exact resonances. After a detailed analysis of the $\alpha$-FPU equation of motion, we find that the first non trivial resonances correspond ...
May 14, 2014
We introduce and numerically study a long-range-interaction generalization of the one-dimensional Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) $\beta-$ model. The standard quartic interaction is generalized through a coupling constant that decays as $1/r^\alpha$ ($\alpha \ge 0$)(with strength characterized by $b>0$). In the $\alpha \to\infty$ limit we recover the original FPU model. Through classical molecular dynamics computations we show that (i) For $\alpha \geq 1$ the maximal Lyapunov exponent...
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We investigate the long term evolution of trajectories in the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) system, using as a probe the first non--trivial integral $J$ in the hierarchy of integrals of the corresponding Toda lattice model. To this end we perform simulations of FPU--trajectories for various classes of initial conditions produced by the excitation of isolated modes, packets, as well as `generic' (random) initial data. For initial conditions corresponding to localized energy excitatio...
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We briefly review some of the most relevant results that our group obtained in the past, while investigating the dynamics of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) models. A first result is the numerical evidence of the existence of two different kinds of transitions in the dynamics of the FPU models: i) a Stochasticity Threshold (ST), characterized by a value of the energy per degree of freedom below which the overwhelming majority of the phase space trajectories are regular (vanishing ...
November 29, 2004
A brief review of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) paradox is given, together with its suggested resolutions and its relation to other physical problems. We focus on the ideas and concepts that have become the core of modern nonlinear mechanics, in their historical perspective. Starting from the first numerical results of FPU, both theoretical and numerical findings are discussed in close connection with the problems of ergodicity, integrability, chaos and stability of motion. New ...
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A numerical and analytical study of the relaxation to equilibrium of both the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) alpha-model and the integrable Toda model, when the fundamental mode is initially excited, is reported. We show that the dynamics of both systems is almost identical on the short term, when the energies of the initially unexcited modes grow in geometric progression with time, through a secular avalanche process. At the end of this first stage of the dynamics the time-averaged ...
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Understanding the interplay between different wave excitations, such as phonons and localized solitons, is crucial for developing coarse-grained descriptions of many-body, near-integrable systems. We treat the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) non-linear chain and show numerically that at short timescales, relevant to the largest Lyapunov exponent, it can be modeled as a random perturbation of its integrable approximation -- the Toda chain. At low energies, the separation betwe...