Impact of on-site potentials on $q$-breathers in nonlinear chains

Abstract

On-site potentials are ubiquitous in physical systems and strongly influence their heat transport and energy localization. These potentials will inevitably affect the dynamical properties of $q$-breathers (QBs), defined as periodic orbits exponentially localized in normal mode space. By integrating on-site terms into the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou-$β$ system, this work utilizes numerical simulations and Floquet analysis to systematically explore the influence of on-site potentials on QB stability. For most QBs, except those at the phonon band edges, the instability is primarily governed by parametric resonance, and effectively described by coupled Mathieu equations. This approach provides a theoretical expression for the instability thresholds, which aligns well with numerical results. We demonstrate that the instability thresholds can be controlled through the strength of on-site potentials, and for a strong enough quadratic on-site potential, the QBs are always stable. Furthermore, the instability threshold is highly sensitive to the seed mode, in stark contrast to systems without on-site potentials. In addition, the instability phase diagrams exhibit joint interplay between different terms in the Hamiltonian, such as the quadratic on-site and quartic inter-site interaction terms, in regulating the QB dynamics. These findings offer valuable insights into QB stability and the manipulation of localized excitations in diverse physical systems with on-site potentials.