Michael Kastner

Energy thresholds for discrete breathers.

Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice. An important issue, not only from a theoretical point of view but also for their experimental detection, is their energy properties. We considerably enlarge the scenario of possible energy properties presented by Flach, Kladko, and MacKay [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 1207 (1997)]]. Breather energies have a positive lower bound if the lattice dimension is greater than or equal to a certain critical value dc. We show that dc can generically be greater than 2 for a large class of Hamiltonian systems. Furthermore, examples are provided for systems where discrete breathers exist but do not emerge from the bifurcation of a band edge plane wave. Some of these systems support breathers of arbitrarily low energy in any spatial dimension.

Partial equivalence of statistical ensembles and kinetic energy

The phenomenon of partial equivalence of statistical ensembles is illustrated by discussing two examples, the mean-field XY and the mean-field spherical model. The configurational parts of these systems exhibit partial equivalence of the microcanonical and the canonical ensemble. Furthermore, the configurational microcanonical entropy is a smooth function, whereas a nonanalytic point of the configurational free energy indicates the presence of a phase transition in the canonical ensemble. In the presence of a standard kinetic energy contribution, partial equivalence is removed and a nonanalyticity arises also microcanonically. Hence in contrast to the common belief, kinetic energy, even though a quadratic form in the momenta, has a nontrivial effect on the thermodynamic behaviour. As a by-product we present the microcanonical solution of the mean-field spherical model with kinetic energy for finite and infinite system sizes.

On the Mean-Field Spherical Model

Exact solutions are obtained for the mean-field spherical model, with or without an external magnetic field, for any finite or infinite number N of degrees of freedom, both in the microcanonical and in the canonical ensemble. The canonical result allows for an exact discussion of the loci/ of the Fisher zeros of the canonical partition function. The microcanonical entropy is found to be nonanalytic for arbitrary finite N. The mean-field spherical model of finite size N is shown to be equivalent to a mixed isovector/isotensor σ-model on a lattice of two sites. Partial equivalence of statistical ensembles is observed for the mean-field spherical model in the thermodynamic limit. A discussion of the topology of certain state space submanifolds yields insights into the relation of these topological quantities to the thermodynamic behavior of the system in the presence of ensemble nonequivalence.

Microcanonical Finite-Size Scaling

In the microcanonical ensemble, suitably defined observables show nonanalyticities and power-law behavior even for finite systems. For these observables, a microcanonical finite-size scaling theory is established and combined with the experimentally observed power-law behavior. Scaling laws are obtained which relate exponents of the finite system and critical exponents of the infinite system to the system-size dependence of the affiliated microcanonical observables.

Bifurcations of discrete breathers in a diatomic Fermi?Pasta?Ulam chain

Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice. Such solutions are investigated for a diatomic Fermi–Pasta–Ulam chain (FPU) i.e. a chain of alternate heavy and light masses coupled by anharmonic forces. For hard interaction potentials, discrete breathers in this model are known to exist either as optic breathers with frequencies above the optic band or as acoustic breathers with frequencies in the gap between the acoustic and the optic band. In this paper, bifurcations between different types of discrete breathers are found numerically, with the mass ratio m and the breather frequency ω as bifurcation parameters. We identify a period tripling bifurcation around optic breathers, which leads to new breather solutions with frequencies in the gap, and a second local bifurcation around acoustic breathers. These results provide new breather solutions of the FPU system which interpolate between the classical acoustic and optic modes. The two bifurcation lines originate from a particular corner in parameter space (ω, m). As parameters lie near this corner, we prove by means of a centre manifold reduction that small amplitude solutions can be described by a four-dimensional reversible map. This allows us to derive formally a continuum limit differential equation which characterizes at leading order the numerically observed bifurcations.

Topological approach to phase transitions and inequivalence of statistical ensembles

The relation between thermodynamic phase transitions in classical systems and topology changes in their state space is discussed for systems in which equivalence of statistical ensembles does not hold. As an example, the spherical model with mean field-type interactions is considered. Exact results for microcanonical and canonical quantities are compared with topological properties of a certain family of submanifolds of the state space. Due to the observed ensemble inequivalence, a close relation is expected to exist only between the topological approach and one of the statistical ensembles. It is found that the observed topology changes can be interpreted meaningfully when compared to microcanonical quantities.

Existence and Order of the Phase Transition of the Ising Model with Fixed Magnetization

Properties of the two dimensional Ising model with fixed magnetization are deduced from known exact results on the two dimensional Ising model. The existence of a continuous phase transition is shown for arbitrary values of the fixed magnetization when crossing the boundary of the coexistence region. Modifications of this result for systems of spatial dimension greater than two are discussed.

Broad histogram method: extension and efficiency test

A method is presented which allows for a tremendous speed-up of computer simulations of statistical systems by orders of magnitude. This speed-up is achieved by means of a new observable, while the algorithm of the simulation remains unchanged.

The mean-field model Phi4: entropy, analyticity, and configuration space topology.

A large deviation technique is applied to the mean-field model Phi4, providing an exact expression for the configurational entropy s(v,m) as a function of the potential energy v and the magnetization m. Although a continuous phase transition occurs at some critical energy vc, the entropy is found to be a real analytic function in both arguments, and it is only the maximization over m which gives rise to a nonanalyticity in s(v)=supm s(v,m). This mechanism of nonanalyticity-generation by maximization over one variable of a real analytic entropy function is restricted to systems with long-range interactions and has--for continuous phase transitions--the generic occurrence of classical critical exponents as an immediate consequence. Furthermore, this mechanism can provide an explanation why, contradictory to the so-called topological hypothesis, the phase transition in the mean-field model need not be accompanied by a topology change in the family of constant-energy submanifolds.

Dimension dependent energy thresholds for discrete breathers

Discrete breathers are time-periodic, spatially localized solutions of the equations of motion for a system of classical degrees of freedom interacting on a lattice. We study the existence of energy thresholds for discrete breathers, i.e. the question of whether, in a certain system, discrete breathers of arbitrarily low energy exist, or whether a threshold has to be overcome in order to excite a discrete breather. Breather energies are found to have a positive lower bound if the lattice dimension d is greater than or equal to a certain critical value dc, whereas no energy threshold is observed for d < dc. The critical dimension dc is system dependent and can be computed explicitly, taking on values between zero and infinity. Three classes of Hamiltonian systems are distinguished, being characterized by different mechanisms affecting the existence (or non-existence) of an energy threshold.