Asymptotic Dynamics of Breathers in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam Chains

TL;DR

This paper investigates the long-term behavior of breathers in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chains, highlighting how temperature influences their stability and decay, with implications for understanding nonlinear lattice dynamics.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how thermal fluctuations affect breather dynamics and decay rates in finite Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chains.

Findings

Breathers are stationary and long-lived at zero temperature.

Thermal fluctuations induce breather motion and accelerate decay.

Temperature significantly impacts breather stability.

Abstract

We study the asymptotic dynamics of breathers in finite Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chains at zero and non-zero temperatures. While such breathers are essentially stationary and very long-lived at zero temperature, thermal fluctuations tend to lead to breather motion and more rapid decay.