Discrete breathers in a two-dimensional hexagonal Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice

Butt, Imran A.; Wattis, Jonathan A.D.

Abstract

We consider a two-dimensional Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) lattice
with hexagonal symmetry. Using asymptotic methods based on
small amplitude ansatz, at third order we obtain a eduction to a cubic nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger equation (NLS) for the breather envelope. However, this does not support stable soliton solutions, so we pursue a higher-order analysis yielding a generalised NLS, which includes known stabilising terms. We present numerical results which suggest that long-lived stationary and moving breathers
are supported by the lattice. We find breather solutions which move in an arbitrary direction, an ellipticity criterion for the wavenumbers of the carrier wave, symptotic estimates for the breather energy,
and a minimum threshold energy below which breathers cannot be found. This energy threshold is maximised for stationary breathers, and becomes vanishingly small near the boundary of the elliptic domain where breathers attain a maximum speed. Several of the results obtained are similar to those obtained for the square FPU lattice (Butt \& Wattis, {\em J Phys A}, {\bf 39}, 4955, (2006)), though we find that the square and hexagonal lattices exhibit different properties in regard to the generation of harmonics, and the isotropy of the generalised NLS equation.

Citation

Butt, I. A., & Wattis, J. A. Discrete breathers in a two-dimensional hexagonal Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Deposit Date: Jul 23, 2008
• Journal: J Phys A Theor Gen
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Keywords: Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattice, breathers
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1017252