Nonexistence of small, odd breathers for a class of nonlinear wave equations (Q2397388)

The paper addresses one-dimensional real scalar nonlinear PDE of the form \[ u_{tt}-u_{xx} = mu +f(u), \] where \(m=\)const, and \(f(u)\) is an odd function. Examples are the sine-Gordon equation, phi-4 and phi-6 equations, etc. The paper produces a rigorous proof of a known conjecture that this equation cannot give rise to odd breathers, i.e., spatially localized time-periodic modes, which are odd functions of \(x\) (as is commonly known, the sine-Gordon equation generates exact breather solutions which are even functions of \(x\)).