Breathers and thermal relaxation in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam arrays

Abstract

Breather stability and longevity in thermally relaxing nonlinear arrays depend sensitively on their interactions with other excitations. We review numerical results for the relaxation of breathers in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam arrays, with a specific focus on the different relaxation channels and their dependence on the interparticle interactions, dimensionality, initial condition, and system parameters. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.