ENERGY BARRIERS IN COUPLED OSCILLATORS: FROM DISCRETE KINKS TO DISCRETE BREATHERS

摘要

This tutorial paper aims to review some elementary concepts of the theory of "localisation by nonlinearity and discreteness, and energy transfer" in coupled oscillators. For didactic purpose, this work focusses on the concept of energy barriers in coupled pendula, rather than on the related and more general theme of "effective dynamics" in coupled oscillators, although an introduction to the latter is necessary to understand the former. Further studies concerning the material of these notes are found mainly in refs.