Localized waves in nonlinear oscillator chains

This paper reviews results about the existence of spatially localized waves in nonlinear chains of coupled oscillators, and provides new results for the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) lattice. Localized solutions include solitary waves of permanent form and traveling breathers which appear time periodic in a system of reference moving at constant velocity. For FPU lattices we analyze the case when the breather period and the inverse velocity are commensurate. We employ a center manifold reduction method introduced by Iooss and Kirchgassner in the case of traveling waves, which reduces the problem locally to a finite dimensional reversible differential equation. The principal part of the reduced system is integrable and admits solutions homoclinic to quasi-periodic orbits if a hardening condition on the interaction potential is satisfied. These orbits correspond to approximate travelling breather solutions superposed on a quasi-periodic oscillatory tail. The problem of their persistence for the full system is still open in the general case. We solve this problem for an even potential if the breather period equals twice the inverse velocity, and prove in that case the existence of exact traveling breather solutions superposed on an exponentially small periodic tail. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.