Energy localization in interacting atomic chains with topological solitons

TL;DR

This paper investigates how topological solitons influence energy transport and localization in atomic chains, revealing regimes of enhanced energy pinning and controllable flux, with implications for nanoscale physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates the impact of topological defects on energy localization and transport, and shows how environmental parameters can regulate energy flux in ion crystals.

Findings

Enhanced energy localization in pinning regimes.

Energy flux can be tuned by environmental parameters.

Robust localization persists despite long evolution times.

Abstract

Topological defects in low-dimensional non-linear systems feature a sliding-to-pinning transition of relevance for a variety of research fields, ranging from biophysics to nano- and solid-state physics. We find that the dynamics after a local excitation results in a highly-non-trivial energy transport in the presence of a topological soliton, characterized by a strongly enhanced energy localization in the pinning regime. Moreover, we show that the energy flux in ion crystals with a topological defect can be sensitively regulated by experimentally accessible environmental parameters. Whereas, third-order non-linear resonances can cause an enhanced long-time energy delocalization, robust energy localization persists for distinct parameter ranges even for long evolution times and large local excitations.