Energy relaxation in nonlinear one-dimensional lattices

We study energy relaxation in thermalized one-dimensional nonlinear arrays of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam type. The ends of the thermalized systems are placed in contact with a zero-temperature reservoir via damping forces. Harmonic arrays relax by sequential phonon decay into the cold reservoir, the lower...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Reigada Sanz, Ramon, Sarmiento, Antonio, Lindenberg, Katja
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2001
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/18922
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/18922
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Física estadística
Termodinàmica
Dinàmica reticular
Statistical physics
Thermodynamics
Lattice dynamics
Descripción
Sumario:We study energy relaxation in thermalized one-dimensional nonlinear arrays of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam type. The ends of the thermalized systems are placed in contact with a zero-temperature reservoir via damping forces. Harmonic arrays relax by sequential phonon decay into the cold reservoir, the lower-frequency modes relaxing first. The relaxation pathway for purely anharmonic arrays involves the degradation of higher-energy nonlinear modes into lower-energy ones. The lowest-energy modes are absorbed by the cold reservoir, but a small amount of energy is persistently left behind in the array in the form of almost stationary low-frequency localized modes. Arrays with interactions that contain both a harmonic and an anharmonic contribution exhibit behavior that involves the interplay of phonon modes and breather modes. At long times relaxation is extremely slow due to the spontaneous appearance and persistence of energetic high-frequency stationary breathers. Breather behavior is further ascertained by explicitly injecting a localized excitation into the thermalized arrays and observing the relaxation behavior.