Numerical study of two-dimensional disordered Klein-Gordon lattices with cubic soft anharmonicity

Abstract

Localized oscillations appear both in ordered nonlinear lattices (breathers) and in disordered linear lattices (Anderson modes). Numerical studies on a class of two-dimensional systems of the Klein-Gordon type show that there exist two different types of bifurcation in the path from nonlinearity-order to linearity-disorder: inverse pitchforks, with or without period doubling, and saddle-nodes. This was discovered for a one-dimensional system in a previous work of Archilla, MacKay and Marin. The appearance of a saddle-node bifurcation indicates that nonlinearity and disorder begin to interfere destructively and localization is not possible. In contrast, the appearance of a pitchfork bifurcation indicates that localization persists.