Breather lattices as pseudospin glasses

Abstract

We study the thermodynamics of discrete breathers by transforming a lattice of weakly coupled nonlinear oscillators into an effective Ising pseudospin model. We introduce a replica ensemble and investigate the effective system susceptibilities through the replica overlap distribution. We find that a transition occurs at a given temperature to a new phase characterized by a slow decay of the relevant correlation functions. Comparison of long time pseudospin correlation functions to maximal replica overlap demonstrates that the high temperature phase has glassy-like properties induced by short range order found in the system.