Discrete breathers in two-dimensional anisotropic nonlinear Schrödinger lattices (Q2492278)

The structure and stability of pinned or mobile discrete breathers -- time periodic and spatially localized nonlinear solutions with frequency in gaps of the linear phonon spectrum -- is an interesting and challenging topic of research [\textit{A. C. Scott}, Nonlinear science. Emergence and dynamics of coherent structures. Oxford: University Press (1999; Zbl 0927.35002)]. In this paper, this problem is studied in two-dimensional nonlinear anisotropic Schrödinger lattices, which, besides their own interest, are useful, for instance, as a model of arrays of coupled nonlinear optical waveguides or in solid-state physics [see, for instance, \textit{P. G. Kevrekidis} et al., Phys. Rev. E 61, 4652 (2000)]. The authors start from a weakly coupled regime, where the system behaves as a set of identical independent one-dimensional systems whose solutions are known [\textit{J. Gómez-Gardeñes} et al., Chaos 14, No. 4, 1130--1147 (2004; Zbl 1080.35139)], and proceed in a continuation approach by monitoring the transverse coupling parameter, which is increased up to a fully-coupled isotropic lattice. The results of the numerical computations are expressed as a function of the breather frequency, nonlinearity, and transversal coupling. The analysis of pinned breathers shows a quasi-collapse transition, associated with the well-known existence of thresholds for the breather norm in two-dimensional lattices, and the dynamics of the unstable manifold is examined. The most interesting results of the paper are related to mobile breathers along strong coupling direction (arbitrary directions require a more complicated analysis, which the authors leave for a future paper). On the one side, it is seen that their structure is a superposition of an exponential mobile core and an extended background of two-dimensional nonlinear plane waves, in agreement with previous results in one-dimensional systems. Concerning stability, is is found a quasi-collapse instability analogous to that of pinned solutions, and another kind of instability which leads to the ejection of a small moving pulse and is therefore called a fission instability. The development of the instabilities is studied on the unstable nonlinear manifold, the stability diagram is shown in terms of nonlinearity and transverse coupling, and it is shown that both kinds of instabilities have different origins, in contrast with some previous ideas.