Eur. Phys. J. B (2016) 89: 233
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2016-70489-3

Regular Article

From solitons to discrete breathers

¹ Instituto Pluridisciplinar, UCM, Paseo Juan XXIII 1, 28040 Madrid, Spain
² Department of Physics, Saratov State University, Astrakhanskaya 83, 410012 Saratov, Russia
³ Institute of Physics, Humboldt University, Newton strasse 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany
⁴ Institute for Metals Superplasticity Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Khalturin 39, 450001 Ufa, Russia
⁵ Research Laboratory for Mechanics of New Nanomaterials, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnical University, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia
⁶ Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Vitkevicha 1, 142290 Pushchino, Russia

^a e-mail: mgvelarde@pluri.ucm.es

Received: 19 August 2016
Received in final form: 30 August 2016
Published online: 24 October 2016

Abstract

The excitation of solitons and discrete breathers (pinned or otherwise, also known as intrinsic localized modes, DB/ILM) in a one-dimensional lattice, also denoted as a chain, is considered when both on-site and inter-site vibrations, coupled together, are governed by the empirical Morse interaction. We focus attention on the transformation of the former into the latter as the relative strength of the on-site potential to that of the inter-site potential is increased.