Supersonic Kinks in Coulomb lattices

Abstract

There exist in nature examples of lattices of elements for which the interaction is repulsive, the elements are kept in place because different reasons, as border conditions, geometry (e.g., circular) and, certainly, the interaction with other elements in the system, which provides an external potential. A primer example are layered silicates as mica muscovite, where the potassium ions form a two dimensional lattice between silicate layers. We propose an extremely simplified model of this layer in order to isolate the properties of a repulsive lattice and study them. We find that they are extremely well suited for the propagation of supersonic kinks and multikinks. Theoretically, they may have as much energy and travel as fast as desired. This striking results suggest that the properties of repulsive lattices may be related with some yet not fully explained direct and indirect observations of lattice excitations in muscovite.