Effect of discrete breathers on the specific heat of a nonlinear chain (Q2022603): Difference between revisions

Discrete breathers (DBs) or intrinsic localized modes (ILMs) are spatially localized, large-amplitude oscillations in a nonlinear defect-free lattice. They are divided into two large groups according to the type of anharmonicity (soft or hard). They cause a decrease (or increase) in the frequency of oscillations with amplitude. In this paper, the effect of DBs on the total-to-kinetic-energy ratio of the chain is investigated and its relation to the specific heat of a nonlinear chain. The authors construct a model to consider both types of anharmonicity, introducing a sixth-order polynomial on-site potential to evaluate the contribution of DBs in the change of the total-to-kinetic-energy ratio. It is shown that chaotic DBs arise in the chain as a result of the modulational instability of particular extended vibrational modes, at the zone-boundary mode (\(q = \pi\)) for the case of hard-type anharmonicity and the \(\Gamma\)-point mode (\(q = 0\)) for the case of soft-type anharmonicity.