Periodic orbits, localization in normal mode space, and the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem

Abstract

The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem was one of the first computational experiments. It has stirred the physics community since, and resisted a simple solution for half a century. The combination of straightforward simulations, efficient computational schemes for finding periodic orbits, and analytical estimates allows us to achieve significant progress. Recent results on $q$-breathers, which are time-periodic solutions that are localized in the space of normal modes of a lattice and maximize the energy at a certain mode number, are discussed, together with their relation to the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem. The localization properties of a $q$-breather are characterized by intensive parameters, that is, energy densities and wave numbers. By using scaling arguments, $q$-breather solutions are constructed in systems of arbitrarily large size. Frequency resonances in certain regions of wave number space lead to the complete delocalization of $q$-breathers. The relation of these features to the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem are discussed.