Suppression of two-bounce windows in kink-antikink collisions

Abstract

We consider a class of topological defects in (1, 1)-dimensions with a deformed ϕ4 kink structure whose stability analysis leads to a Schrödinger-like equation with a zero-mode and at least one vibrational (shape) mode. We are interested in the dynamics of kink-antikink collisions, focusing on the structure of two-bounce windows. For small deformation and for one or two vibrational modes, the observed two-bounce windows are explained by the standard mechanism of a resonant effect between the first vibrational and the translational modes. With the increasing of the deformation, the effect of the appearance of more than one vibrational mode is the gradual disappearance of the initial two-bounce windows. The total suppression of two-bounce windows even with the presence of a vibrational mode offers a counterexample from what expected from the standard mechanism. For extremely large deformation the defect has a 2-kink structure with one translational and one vibrational mode, and the standard structure of two-bounce windows is recovered.