Bifurcations of discrete breathers in a diatomic Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chain

The FPUT paradox is the phenomenon whereby a one-dimensional chain of oscillators with nonlinear couplings shows non-ergodic behavior. The trajectory of the system in phase space, with a long wavelength initial condition, closely follows that of the Toda model over short times, as both systems seem to relax quickly to a non-thermal, metastable state. Over longer times, resonances in the FPUT spectrum drive the system towards equilibrium, away from the Toda trajectory. Similar...

We explore the dynamics of strongly localized periodic solutions (discrete solitons, or discrete breathers) in a finite one-dimensional chain of asymmetric vibro-impact oscillators. The model involves a parabolic on-site potential with asymmetric rigid constraints (the displacement domain of each particle is finite), and a linear nearest-neighbor coupling. When the particle approaches the constraint, it undergoes an impact (not necessarily elastic), that satisfies Newton impa...

We prove the existence of discrete breathers (time-periodic, spatially localized solutions) in weakly coupled ferromagnetic spin chains with easy-axis anisotropy. Using numerical methods we then investigate the continuation of discrete breather solutions as the intersite coupling is increased. We find a band of frequencies for which the 1-site breather continues all the way to the soliton solution in the continuum. There is a second band, which abuts the first, in which the 1...

In this work, we provide two complementary perspectives for the (spectral) stability of solitary traveling waves in Hamiltonian nonlinear dynamical lattices, of which the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam and the Toda lattice are prototypical examples. One is as an eigenvalue problem for a stationary solution in a co-traveling frame, while the other is as a periodic orbit modulo shifts. We connect the eigenvalues of the former with the Floquet multipliers of the latter and based on this formu...

The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) chains of particles in \textit{thermal equilibrium} are studied from both wave-interaction and particle-interaction points of view. It is shown that, even in a strongly nonlinear regime, the chain in thermal equilibrium can be effectively described by a system of weakly interacting \textit{renormalized} nonlinear waves. These waves possess (i) the Rayleigh-Jeans distribution and (ii) zero correlations between waves, just as noninteracting free waves...

We study the dynamics of the "externally" forced and damped Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) 1D lattice. The forcing has the spatial symmetry of the Fourier mode with wavenumber p and oscillates sinusoidally in time with the frequency omega. When omega is in the phonon band, the p-mode becomes modulationally unstable above a critical forcing, which we determine analytically in terms of the parameters of the system. For omega above the phonon band, the instability of the p-mode leads to...

We present a detailed analysis of the modulational instability of the zone-boundary mode for one and higher-dimensional Fermi--Pasta--Ulam (FPU) lattices. The growth of the instability is followed by a process of relaxation to equipartition, which we have called the Anti-FPU problem because the energy is initially fed into the highest frequency part of the spectrum, while in the original FPU problem low frequency excitations of the lattice were considered. This relaxation pro...

This paper considers the famous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chain with periodic boundary conditions and quartic nonlinearities. Due to special resonances and discrete symmetries, the Birkhoff normal form of this Hamiltonian system is completely integrable. We study how the level sets of the integrals foliate the phase space. Our study reveals all the integrable structure in the low energy domain of the chain. If the number of particles in the chain is even, then this foliation is singul...

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...

We investigate, both analytically and numerically, dispersive fractalization and quantization of solutions to periodic linear and nonlinear Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou systems. When subject to periodic boundary conditions and discontinuous initial conditions, e.g., a step function, both the linearized and nonlinear continuum models for FPUT exhibit fractal solution profiles at irrational times (as determined by the coefficients and the length of the interval) and quantized profi...