Breather

In physics, a breather is a nonlinear^{[disambiguation needed]} wave in which energy concentrates in a localized and oscillatory fashion. This contradicts with the expectations derived from the corresponding linear system for infinitesimal amplitudes, which tends towards an even distribution of initially localized energy.

A discrete breather is a breather solution on a nonlinear lattice.

The term breather originates from the characteristic that most breathers are localized in space and oscillate (

Overview

A breather is a localized

The sine-Gordon equation is the nonlinear dispersive partial differential equation

${\displaystyle {\frac {\partial ^{2}u}{\partial t^{2}}}-{\frac {\partial ^{2}u}{\partial x^{2}}}+\sin u=0,}$

with the field u a function of the spatial coordinate x and time t.

An exact solution found by using the inverse scattering transform is:^[1]

${\displaystyle u=4\arctan \left({\frac {{\sqrt {1-\omega ^{2}}}\;\cos(\omega t)}{\omega \;\cosh({\sqrt {1-\omega ^{2}}}\;x)}}\right),}$

which, for ω < 1, is periodic in time t and decays exponentially when moving away from x = 0.

Example of a breather solution for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation

The focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation^[5] is the dispersive partial differential equation:

${\displaystyle i\,{\frac {\partial u}{\partial t}}+{\frac {\partial ^{2}u}{\partial x^{2}}}+|u|^{2}u=0,}$

with u a complex field as a function of x and t. Further i denotes the imaginary unit.

One of the breather solutions is ^[2]

${\displaystyle u=\left({\frac {2b^{2}\cosh(\theta )+2ib{\sqrt {2-b^{2}}}\sinh(\theta )}{2\cosh(\theta )-{\sqrt {2}}{\sqrt {2-b^{2}}}\cos(abx)}}-1\right)a\,e^{ia^{2}t}}$

with

${\displaystyle \theta =a^{2}\,b\,{\sqrt {2-b^{2}}}\;t,}$

which gives breathers periodic in space x and approaching the uniform value a when moving away from the focus time t = 0. These breathers exist for values of the modulation parameter b less than √2. Note that a limiting case of the breather solution is the Peregrine soliton.^[6]

See also

• Breather surface
• Soliton

References and notes