Pterobreathers in a model for a layered crystal with realistic potentials: Exact moving breathers in a moving frame

Abstract

In this article we perform a thorough analysis of breathers in a one-dimensional model for a layered silicate for which there exists fossil and experimental evidence of moving excitations along the close-packed lines of the K+ layers. Some of these excitations are likely breathers with a small energy of about 0.2 eV as the numerically obtained breathers described in the present model. Moving breathers as exact solutions of the dynamical equations are obtained at the price of being generically associated with a plane wave, a wing, with finite amplitude, although this amplitude can be very small. We call them pterobreathers. For some frequencies the wings disappear and the solutions become exact moving breathers with no wings, showing the phenomenon of supertransmission of energy. We perform a theoretical analysis of pterobreathers in systems with substrate potential and show that they are characterized by a single frequency in the moving frame plus the frequency of the wings. We have also studied high-energy stationary breathers which transform into single and double kinks and stable multibreathers with very strong localization.