Interaction of moving discrete breathers with vacancies (Q2492291)

Discrete breathers are classical spatially localized, time-periodic solutions which can be sustained by many nonlinear lattices. If they are allowed to move along the one-dimensional chain, with local homogeneities (analogs of vacancies in the crystal), suitable interaction assumptions make vacancies to propagate. The Frenkel-Kontorova model with a sine-Gordon substrate potential and the Morse nearest neighbor interaction is investigated numerically. The main observation of the paper is a strong dependence of the vacancy (im)mobility on the existence and stability of breathers adjacent to the defect location in the chain. Single and double vacancy-breather scattering scenarios were investigated.