Boundary-induced instabilities in coupled oscillators

Abstract

A novel class of nonequilibrium phase-transitions at zero temperature is found in chains of nonlinear oscillators.For two paradigmatic systems, the Hamiltonian XY model and the discrete nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, we find that the application of boundary forces induces two synchronized phases, separated by a non-trivial interfacial region where the kinetic temperature is finite. Dynamics in such supercritical state displays anomalous chaotic properties whereby some observables are non-extensive and transport is superdiffusive. At finite temperatures, the transition is smoothed, but the temperature profile is still non-monotonous.