Nucleation of breathers via stochastic resonance in nonlinear lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how stochastic resonance can induce the spontaneous formation and destruction of discrete breathers in nonlinear lattices under thermal fluctuations, revealing nonmonotonic noise effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism where stochastic resonance facilitates breather nucleation in nonlinear lattices with a staggered drive.

Findings

Breather formation peaks at optimal noise levels

Breather generation occurs under subthreshold driving conditions

Matching of external and breather frequencies is observed

Abstract

By applying a staggered driving force in a prototypical discrete model with a quartic nonlinearity, we demonstrate the spontaneous formation and destruction of discrete breathers with a selected frequency due to thermal fluctuations. The phenomenon exhibits the striking features of stochastic resonance (SR): a nonmonotonic behavior as noise is increased and breather generation under subthreshold conditions. The corresponding peak is associated with a matching between the external driving frequency and the breather frequency at the average energy given by ambient temperature.