Numerical experiments on the modulation theory for the nonlinear atomic chain (Q2477695)

The paper is devoted to the validity of modulation theory by means of numerical experiments, and it consists of five sections. After intodiction in section 2, a short survey on the foundations of modulation theory is presented. In section 3 numerical methods and techniques are discussed. Here, it is introduced a notion of mesoscopic space-time windows, and discussed numerical computation of both local distribution functions and local mean values. Moreover, a connection between a periodic traveling wave to a given space-time window is explained. The numerical simulations for periodic boundary conditions and initial data with smooth mean values are contained in section 4. In section 5 a problem how macroscopic shock waves influence with validity of modulation theory is studied. The numerical simulations provides an evidence of the following: (a) If all macroscopic fields are smooth, then the oscillations in the atomic data can be described in terms of modulated travelling waves, and the macroscopic dynamics is governed by the modulations system; (b) one can use modulated travelling waves to describe the microscopic oscillations which arise when cold data form shocks; (c) if the shocks emerge from data with temperature, then usually the microscopic oscillations exhibit a more complicated structure, and modulation theory fail in this case. One can summarize that modulation theory provides the correct thermodynamic description for a wide class of problems.