November 10, 2020 16:14 WSPC/S0218-1274 2030047

International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, Vol. 30, No. 15 (2020) 2030047 (19 pages)
c World Scientific Publishing Company
DOI: 10.1142/S0218127420300475

Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian

Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

Anastasios Bountis∗ and Konstantinos Kaloudis†

Department of Mathematics, Nazarbayev University,
Qabanbay Batyr Ave 53, Nur-Sultan 010000, Kazakhstan
∗[email protected]
†[email protected]

Thomas Oikonomou
Department of Physics, Nazarbayev University,
Qabanbay Batyr Ave 53, Nur-Sultan 010000, Kazakhstan
[email protected]
Bertin Many Manda‡ and Charalampos Skokos§
Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics,
University of Cape Town,
Rondebosch Cape Town, 7701, South Africa
‡[email protected]
§[email protected]

Received ; Revised

We investigate the local and global dynamics of two 1-Dimensional (1D) Hamiltonian lattices
whose inter-particle forces are derived from nonanalytic potentials. In particular, we study the
dynamics of a model governed by a “graphene-type” force law and one inspired by Hollomon’s
law describing “work-hardening” effects in certain elastic materials. Our main aim is to show
that, although similarities with the analytic case exist, some of the local and global stability
properties of nonanalytic potentials are very different than those encountered in systems with
polynomial interactions, as in the case of 1D Fermi–Pasta–Ulam–Tsingou (FPUT) lattices. Our
approach is to study the motion in the neighborhood of simple periodic orbits representing
continuations of normal modes of the corresponding linear system, as the number of particles N
and the total energy E are increased. We find that the graphene-type model is remarkably stable
up to escape energy levels where breakdown is expected, while the Hollomon lattice never breaks,
yet is unstable at low energies and only attains stability at energies where the harmonic force
becomes dominant. We suggest that, since our results hold for large N , it would be interesting
to study analogous phenomena in the continuum limit where 1D lattices become strings.

Keywords: Hamiltonian system; nonanalytic potential; simple periodic orbits; stable and unsta-
ble dynamics; local and global stability.

§
Author for correspondence

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A. Bountis et al.

1. Introduction stiffness constant and the nonlinear electrostatic

force [Hazim et al., 2015; Wei et al., 2017a]. They
The dynamical behavior of N -degree of freedom
thus used phase plane analysis, obtained the fixed
Hamiltonian systems has attracted the attention of
points and periodic solutions of the system and
many researchers for nearly 70 years. Ever since the
studied their bifurcations as various parameters of
pioneering numerical experiments of Fermi, Pasta,
the problem are changed. In this paper, we con-
Ulam and Tsingou (FPUT) in the early 1950’s
sider a 1D lattice of N such mass spring systems
[Berman & Izrailev, 2005], and the far-reaching
with fixed ends and couple them to each other with
implications of the Kolomogorov Arnol’d Moser
harmonic springs under nearest neighbor particle
(KAM) theory [Lichtenberg & Lieberman, 1986],
interactions.
extensive efforts were made to understand the
The experimental force-deformation relation
dynamics and statistics of 1-Dimensional (1D) non-
has been expressed as a phenomenological nonlin-
linear Hamiltonian lattices, in view of their many
ear scalar relation between the applied stress (σ)
applications in classical and statistical mechan-
and the observed strain (), as σ = E + D2 , where
ics [Bountis & Skokos, 2012]. Most studies so far
E > 0 and D < 0 are, respectively, the Young mod-
have focused on 1D Hamiltonian lattices with ana-
ulus and an effective nonlinear (third-order) elastic
lytic potentials, such as FPUT systems with cubic
modulus of the two-dimensional carbon sheet [Lee
and/or quartic interparticle forces [Antonopoulos
et al., 2008]. In its 1D form this relation becomes
et al., 2006], particle chains with on-site poten-
σ = E + D|| and provides an expression for the
tials exhibiting localized (breather) modes [Flach &
applied force at the tip and the tip-displacement of
Gorbach, 2008; Oikonomou et al., 2014], Josephson
the form ẍ = −x + x|x|. In our work, we consider
junction arrays with sinusoidal nonlinearities [Usti-
a 1D lattice of N such mass spring systems cou-
nov et al., 1993] and discretizations of the Gross–
pled to each other by harmonic springs in a nearest
Pitaevski equation of Bose–Einstein condensation
neighbor arrangement with fixed ends, as follows:
[Antonopoulos et al., 2006].
In this paper, we focus on 1D Hamiltonian N
 1
N particle systems, whose potential is a nonan- H= mj ẋ2j
alytic function of the position coordinates. Such 2
j=1
systems are important for applications involving
N 
 
“graphene-type” materials [Cadelano et al., 2009; K 2 D 3
+ (xj+1 − xj ) − |xj+1 − xj | , (1)
Lu & Huang, 2009; Colombo & Giordano, 2011; 2 3
j=0
Hazim et al., 2015; Wei et al., 2017a], and micro-
electrical-mechanical systems (MEMS) [Esposito where D = −D > 0. Thus, with regard to this lat-
et al., 2010; Younis, 2013; Khan et al., 2017] obey- tice model, we employ in the present paper the anal-
ing Hollomon’s power-law and exhibiting “work- ysis developed in [Bountis, 2006; Skokos et al., 2007;
hardening” properties [Wei & Liu, 2012; Wei et al., Bountis & Skokos, 2012] to investigate the global
2017b]. As in earlier studies [Antonopoulos & Boun- stability of 1D graphene-type systems by studying
tis, 2006; Antonopoulos et al., 2006; Bountis & two SPOs and their vicinity, in terms of (a) sta-
Skokos, 2012], we concentrate here on the (local and ble motion represented by quasiperiodic orbits, and
global) stability properties of certain so-called sim- (b) unstable motion manifested by chaotic orbits,
ple periodic orbits (SPOs), which represent contin- where predictable behavior breaks down. Thus, we
uation of linear normal modes of the system and will demonstrate that by suitably choosing parame-
are characterized by the return of all the variables ters and initial conditions, one may be able to con-
to their initial state after only one maximum and trol the system’s local and global dynamics.
one minimum in their oscillations. In nonlinear elasticity another important prob-
In recent years, a number of researchers, lem with nonanalytic potential arises in the mod-
inspired by work presented in [Lee et al., 2008; eling and numerical simulation of nonlinear beam
Cadelano et al., 2009] have attempted to model structures with applications to MEMS [Esposito
vibrations of a lumped mass attached to a graphene et al., 2010; Younis, 2013]. In these systems, the
sheet using a nonlinear spring-mass equation, nonlinear differential equations and the associated
which takes into account the nonlinear behavior initial/boundary value problems arise through the
of the graphene by including a third-order elastic so-called Hollomon’s power-law and are governed

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

by nonlinear spring-mass equations of the form and discuss the two specific cases of graphene-type
mẍ = −Kx+ x|x|p−2 , 1 ≤ p < 2, for a single oscilla- and work-hardening interactions, providing theoret-
tor in the absence of external load. While for linear ical expressions for their periodic oscillations in the
elastic materials, the principal operator is the bi- single oscillator case. In Sec. 3, we consider the
Laplacian, for Hollomon’s power-law materials, it N particle case for both models and introduce a
is a bi-p-Laplacian [Wei & Liu, 2012; Wei et al., numerical stability criterion to identify the energy
2017b]. Here we plan to generalize these models by per particle E/N that corresponds to the first sta-
considering an array of N such coupled oscillators bility change of two of their SPOs, as E and N
described by the Hamiltonian increase. In Sec. 4, we study in more detail the
global dynamics of the graphene-type model, in the
N
 1 vicinity of its SPOs after their first destabilization
H= mj ẋ2j
2 and use Lyapunov spectra to distinguish between
j=1
“weak” and “strong” chaos as the energy increases.
N 
  Finally, in Sec. 5, we conclude with a discussion of
K 2 λ μ
+ (xj+1 − xj ) + |xj+1 − xj | , (2) the results and an outlook for future research.
2 μ
j=0

governed by a potential derived from Hollomon’s 2. Models and Methods

law, which characterizes a phenomenon known in
In what follows, we consider 1D lattices of N parti-
engineering as “work-hardening”. In such cases,
cles of mass mj coupled with nearest-neighbor inter-
nonlinearity is introduced in the potential in the
actions and described by the Hamiltonian:
form |x|μ , with 1 < μ < 2, which, for small mass dis-
placements, is more important than the harmonic N
 1
part of the potential! In fact, in the 1-degree of free- H= mj ẋ2j
2
dom case, the solutions are expressed in terms of a j=1
generalized form of trigonometric functions [Shelup- N  
sky, 1959; Burgoyne, 1964].  K C
2 q+1
+ (xj+1 − xj ) + |xj+1 − xj | ,
Thus, in what follows, we shall focus on 2 q+1
j=0
the above two types of interactions: the so-called
graphene-type system (1) and the one based on Hol- (3)
lomon’s power-law, characterizing materials that with the respective equations of motion
exhibit work-hardening (2). We perform local sta-
bility analysis of certain SPOs for these two systems mj ẍj = K(xj−1 − 2xj + xj+1 )
and identify regions in the parameter plane charac-
terized by more global properties of the motion such − C[|xj − xj−1 |q sgn(xj − xj−1 )
as “weak” or “strong” chaos [Bountis & Skokos, − |xj+1 − xj |q sgn(xj+1 − xj )], (4)
2012].
We will demonstrate that these mass spring sys- where
tems have remarkable stability properties, which are ∂|x − x0 |
strikingly different from those of analogous lattices sgn(x − x0 ) :=
∂x
with integer nonlinearities of the form (xj+1 − xj )s ⎧
with s = 3, 4, . . . . More specifically, in the case ⎪
⎨+1, x > x0
of (1) we find SPO destabilization laws for energies x − x0
= = 0, x = x0 (5)
per particle (E/N ) that decrease as N grows with |x − x0 | ⎪
⎩
very different exponents than in the FPUT case, −1, x < x0 .
while for (2) we discover that the SPOs are unsta- xj denotes the displacement of the jth particle from
ble for small energies and stabilize at energies that its equilibrium position, ẋj is the corresponding
grow with increasing N , at displacements where the velocity, K is the elastic constant and C the mate-
harmonic interactions begin to dominate over the rial stiffness. We impose fixed boundary conditions
anharmonic ones. throughout so that:
The outline of the paper is as follows: In
Sec. 2, we present our nonanalytic Hamiltonians x0 (t) = xN +1 (t) = 0, ∀ t ∈ T ⊆ R+ . (6)

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A. Bountis et al.

For the graphene-type interactions we set C = Substituting this expression into the equation of
−D, D > 0 and q = 2, so that the Hamilto- motion (7), we find
nian takes the form of Eq. (1), while for the work-
(1 − ω 2 ) = |A1 ||cos ωt|, (10)
hardening interactions we have C = λ, λ > 0 and
q ∈ [0, 1) so that the Hamiltonian has the form which shows that ω < 1 as expected. In addition,
Eq. (2). We note that when q ≥ 1 the discontinu- |cos ωt| is a periodic function with period π/ω and
ity in the sign function when Δxj = xj − xj−1 = 0 can therefore be expanded as a Fourier series over
does not create difficulties regarding the numerical the interval [−π/2ω, π/2ω] as follows
integration since the term |xj − xj−1 |q dominates. ∞
However, when q ∈ [0, 1), which is the interval of B0 
|cos ωt| = + Bi cos 2iωt, (11)
interest for Hollomon’s law, the sign function domi- 2
i=1
nates over the term |Δxj |q and creates spurious fluc-
tuations in the numerically computed total energy with
value, which should be constant. π/2ω
2ω 4
Thus, to avoid this undesired behavior in the B0 = dt|cos ωt| = ,
π −π/2ω π
numerical integrations, we approximate the sign
function in (4) by sgn(x − x0 ) ≈ tanh[τ (x − x0 )] π/2ω
2ω 4
for a value of τ > 0 large enough (typically τ = B1 = dt|cos ωt| cos 2ωt = , ....
π −π/2ω 3π
100). In what follows we will assume mj = 1, for
j = 1, . . . , N and fix the value of the exponent for (12)
the Hollomon-type interactions at q = 13 .
This implies
2 4
2.1. Graphene-type interactions 1 − ω 2 = |A1 | + cos 2ωt + · · · . (13)
π 3π
As explained in [Hazim et al., 2015; Wei et al., Therefore, we may find the frequency of these oscil-
2017a] and described above, a meaningful way to lations equating the constant terms
analyze a single graphene oscillator as a 1-degree
of freedom mass-spring system is through the 2|x0 |
ω2 = 1 − , (14)
equation π
setting A1 = x0 . In Fig. 1(a), we plot the sin-
mẍ = −Kx + Dx|x|, (7) gle cosine of Eq. (9) (blue curve) and the numer-
where m is the mass, K is the elastic coefficient and ical (black dots) solution over one time period for
D > 0 is a nonlinearity parameter. This equation is the initial amplitude x0 = 0.05 which corresponds
derived from the Hamiltonian function to a frequency ω 2 ≈ 0.968169 and find excellent
agreement.
m 2 K 2 D 3 For oscillations at higher energies, one has to
H= ẋ + x − |x| = E, (8)
2 2 3 consider higher harmonics of the Fourier series. For
instance, if we substitute into Eq. (7) the next
whose potential represents a symmetric well about
approximation of such a solution
x = 0, with extrema at x = ±K/D, where
the energy reaches its maximum value Hmax = x(t) = A1 cos ωt + A3 cos 3ωt, (15)
K 3 /6D2 . Thus, setting m = K = D = 1, and vary-
ing the energy we may study the periodic motions and expand it into Fourier terms
of the oscillator from small values E > 0 up to |A1 cos ωt + A3 cos 3ωt|
E = Emax = 1/6 beyond which the motion escapes
∞
to infinity and the mass-spring system “breaks”. B0 
= + Bi cos 2iωt, (16)
Considering (with no loss of generality) the ini- 2
i=1
tial condition x(0) = x0 and ẋ(0) = 0, we may
approximate the low energy oscillation by a single we estimate the coefficients B0 , B1 in terms of A1 ,
harmonic term: A3 , and substitute them in the equation of motion
to obtain a nonlinear system of algebraic equations
x(t) = A1 cos ωt. (9) for ω 2 , A1 and A3 , for each initial amplitude x0 .

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. Numerical (black dots) versus analytical (blue curve) approximations of the single graphene oscillator (8) with unit
mass for (a) small (x0 = 0.05) and (b) large (x0 = 0.8) amplitudes of oscillations. In (a) we have used only the first term of
the Fourier series [see Eq. (9)] while in (b) we employed the first two terms [see Eq. (15)].

These low order approximations are quite accurate N = 2, for example, the potential has the form
even for x0 = 0.8 close to the separatrix, as we see in plotted in Fig. 2 and the escape energy threshold is
Fig. 1(b), where ω 2 ≈ 0.315843 and we compare the E esc
2 = 0.333 . . . .
analytical (blue curve) and numerical (black dots) It is, of course, highly desirable to estimate
results for the second order approximation (15). the escape energy thresholds of these models for
Proceeding now to higher dimensional gra- any N . To do this, one needs to find the criti-
phene-type models, with N = 2, 3, 4, . . . , it is easy cal points of V (x), solving the system of nonlin-
to see that the presence of the negative (abso- ear algebraic equations ∇V (x) = 0N , where V (x)
lute) values of cubic terms in the potential will represents the potential energy term in (3), with
always lead to escape at high enough energy. When x = (x1 , x2 , . . . , xN ). Then, one uses the Hessian

Fig. 2. Potential of the graphene-type model for N = 2, with E esc

2 = 0.333 . . .. The color coding indicates the depth of the
potential.

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A. Bountis et al.

matrix class, whose Hamiltonian has the form:

N m 2 K 2 λ
∂2V H= ẋ + x + |x|1+q = E. (17)
H(x) = 2 2 1+q
∂xi ∂xj i,j=1
As mentioned earlier, the exponent q associated
to identify saddle points of the potential at critical with Hollomon’s law satisfies 0 ≤ q < 1 and will
points of the Hessian with nonzero eigenvalues, at be chosen here to have the value q = 1/3. Since
least two of which have opposite signs. The escape λ > 0, this implies that the potential energy of the
energy threshold E esc
N is the minimum of the ener- system is everywhere positive definite and hence no
gies of the associated saddle points. escape is possible, as its equations of motion
This is a cumbersome procedure due to the
existence of many critical points, which necessitates mẍ + Kx + λ|x|q−1 x = 0, (18)
that we repeatedly run suitable nonlinear zero find- describes only bounded motions. This differential
ing algorithms for a large number of initial condi- equation cannot be solved in closed form. Thus, we
tions. This, together with the high dimensionality of approximate its solution x(t) with a Fourier series
the problem as N grows cause serious convergence expansion of order n as follows:
issues. We, therefore, choose for every N a restricted n

range of initial conditions, find a subset of the sad- xn (t) = Ai cos(iωn t), (19)
dle points of the potential and select the one with i=1
the lowest energy. Clearly this will most likely pro-
where x(t) = limn→∞ xn (t) and ωn denotes the
vide us with upper bounds of the true escape ener-
value of ω at the nth approximation. To determine
gies, and hence more sophisticated algorithms are
the coefficients Ai and the oscillation frequency ωn ,
needed to improve the accuracy of our estimates.
we adopt the following scheme, which ensures that
In Fig. 3, we follow the above strategy and
the total energy E is always preserved: Multiplying
present our approximations of the escape energy
Eq. (18) with x we obtain λ|x|q+1 = −mxẍ − Kx2 ,
thresholds per particle hesc esc
N = E N /N versus N
whence substituting the q-dependent term of this
using a log–log plot. These results are well fitted
equation into Eq. (17) and equating the Hamilto-
by a power law ∝ N −1.176 , which suggests that our
rough approximations may not be too far from the nian with E we get
m
actual escape energy values as N increases. E = ẋ2 + C1 x2 + C2 xẍ,
2
K(q − 1) m
2.2. Hollomon-type interactions C1 ≡ , C2 ≡ − . (20)
2(q + 1) q+1
Let us now turn to the case of the Hollomon-type
1D lattice and consider a single oscillator in this Using Eq. (19) the energy can be expressed in terms
of trigonometric functions,
n 2
mω 2n 
E= iAi sin(iωn t)
2
i=1

n 2

+ C1 Ai cos(iωn t)
i=1

n

− C2 ω 2n Ai cos(iωn t)
i=1
⎡ ⎤
n
×⎣ j 2 Aj cos(jωn t)⎦. (21)
j=1
Fig. 3. Logarithmic plot of the obtained approximations of
the escape energy thresholds per particle hesc esc
N = E N /N for
Using trigonometric identities to express the
the graphene-type model. squared quantities and the product in Eq. (21) as

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

single sums, we rewrite Eq. (21) in the form n−i+1


(n) (+) (+)
Qi := 2−δi−1,0 (aj,j+i−1 + aj+i−1,j )
n 
 n
(+) j=1
E= ai,j cos[(i − j)ωn t]
i=1 j=1 i−2
 (−)
n 
n
+ aj,i−1−j ,
 (−) j=1
+ ai,j cos[(i + j)ωn t], (22)
i=1 j=1 (25)
where δij is the Kronecker delta function and n ≥ 1.
with (n) (n)
We thus arrive at n − 1 equations Q1 = E, Q2 =
(±) 1 mωn2 (n) (n)
ai,j := C1 − C2 ω 2n j 2 ± ij Ai Aj . (23) .n. . , Qn−1 = 0, and an nth one that gives Qn :=
0,
2 2
i=1 Ai − x0 = 0. Determining thus the coefficients
n {Aj }nj=1 , we substitute them back into Eq. (24) and
Setting x(0) = x0 = i=1 Ai and ẋ(0) = 0, we
obtain from Eq. (22) the oscillation frequency in calculate the oscillation frequency ωn . Of course,
terms of the Ai coefficients, as the more terms we consider the better will be the
approximation of ω = limn→∞ ωn .
C1 x20 − E To demonstrate graphically our solution, we set
ω 2n = n . (24)
 the values K = 0.1, λ = 1.05, m = 1 and E = 1 and
2
C2 x0 j Aj plot in Fig. 4(a) the numerical solution of Eq. (18)
j=1 within a period for the position x(t) (red stars) and
the velocity ẋ(t) (blue spheres) with the initial val-
Now, we rearrange all the terms in the energy
ues x(0) = x0 and ẋ(0) = 0, and q = 1/3. The
expression Eq. (22) in a way that leads to n − 1
amplitude x0 is calculated for the given values of
equations determining the A1 , . . . , An coefficients.
the parameters from Eq. (17). In Fig. 4(b) we mag-
The remaining nth equation is given by the equa-
nify the region near the minimum velocity (black
tion for x(0). This guarantees that regardless of the
spheres) and plot our approximate analytical solu-
order of the Fourier series the energy is always con-
tion for n = 3 (blue dashed line), n = 5 (green
served. Then, we have
dashed-dotted line) and n = 7 (red solid line).
n−1
 Clearly, as the number of Fourier terms increases
(n)
E= Qi cos[(i − 1)ωn t], the better becomes its approximation of the numer-
i=1 ical solution.

(a) (b)
Fig. 4. (a) Plot of the numerical solution of the position and velocity functions in Eq. (18) with respect to time for the
rational exponent q = 1/3 and (b) Fourier series expansion for increasing n regarding the velocity function (black spheres)
at the vicinity of its minimum value within a period. As expected, for higher values of n we obtain a better approximation
solution.

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A. Bountis et al.

Let us assume now that our N -dimensional lat- particles are located at the origin, and plot the pro-
tice possesses SPOs, which require that each mov- jections of orbits starting very close to a given SPO.
ing oscillator (some will be stationary) obeys the If the mode is stable, these projections will remain
same differential equation. This characterizes two very close to the SPO all time. However, at ener-
types of SPO solutions that will be of central impor- gies where the SPO has become unstable, nearby
tance in the remainder of this paper. They are orbits will start to move away from it, exploring a
continuations of the corresponding linear normal “chaotic” domain, whose size will give us informa-
modes of the λ = 0 case and have played a major tion about more “global” properties of the motion
role in similar studies of local and global stability around the SPO.
in FPUT lattices [Antonopoulos & Bountis, 2006; To determine the energy values at which these
Antonopoulos et al., 2006; Bountis & Skokos, 2012]. modes become unstable, we study the motion near
Among all possible nonlinear normal modes, these particles that are at rest in the exact periodic solu-
SPOs are the simplest ones, since all moving parti- tion, e.g. the second particle for the above SPO1
cles obey the same differential equation. Thus, they and the third particle for the SPO2. Varying the
involve the whole lattice in a uniform way and are total energy, we shift these particles by a distance
the easiest to study analytically and numerically. || 1 and calculate their maximum displacement
In the next section, we apply linear stability from zero as time evolves. Thus, we estimate the
analysis on two such SPOs of the nonlinear lattices energy of the first destabilization of the SPO when
described by Eq. (3) for the graphene and Hollomon this displacement becomes of the order of O(5||).
systems separately and compare the results. For example, in the case of the SPO1 mode with
N = 5, we select the initial conditions (ICs):
3. Stability of Simple Periodic x1 (0) = −x3 (0) = x5 (0) = x0 ,
(26)
Orbits x4 (0) = 0, x2 (0) = ,
As was done in the past for Hamiltonians with with x0 corresponding to the SPO’s ICs when the
analytic potentials [Antonopoulos & Bountis, 2006; system’s total energy is E, and study the dynamics
Antonopoulos et al., 2006; Bountis & Skokos, 2012], near this mode as E is changed. The same procedure
we also focus here on a pair of SPOs and investigate is applied e.g. to the SPO2 mode with N = 8, using
their stability. They are defined as follows: the ICs:
(1) SPO1 mode, N = 2k + 1, k = 1, 2, 3, . . .: x1 (0) = x2 (0) = −x4 (0) = −x5 (0)
x̂2j (t) = 0, x̂2j−1 (t) = −x̂2j+1 (t) ≡ x̂(t), = x7 (0) = x8 (0) = x0 , (27)
 
N −1 x6 (0) = 0, x3 (0) = ,
j ∈ 1, . . . , ,
2 choosing again x0 to correspond exactly to the
where every second particle is stationary SPO2 for energy E, and investigate how things
between two particles moving in opposite direc- change when E is varied.
tions. We have checked, of course, the accuracy of
(2) SPO2 mode, N = 3k + 5, k = 0, 1, 2, . . .: the above criterion against results obtained through
linear stability analysis, both for SPO1 and SPO2
x̂3j (t) = 0, x̂j (t) = −x̂j+1 (t) ≡ x̂(t), solutions, and have obtained very similar outcomes.
This demonstrates the reliability of our criterion
j ∈ {1, 4, 7, . . . , N − 1},
and allows us to bypass the time-consuming solu-
where every third particle is stationary, while tion of the so-called variational equations and the
the two in between move in opposite directions. computations of the monodromy matrix needed by
the linear stability analysis (for more details see
Among the q = 1, 2, . . . , N normal modes of the lin-
Appendix A).
ear lattice these SPOs are continuations of the ones
with q = (N +1)/2 and q = 2(N +1)/3 respectively.
To examine the motion in the vicinity of 3.1. Graphene-type interactions
these modes, we concentrate on a phase plane Let us apply the numerical approach described
(xi (t), ẋi (t)), i = 1, 2, . . . , N , where the stationary above to study the dynamics near the SPO1 mode of

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 5. Phase plots (xi (t), ẋi (t)), for i ∈ {1, 2, 3} and energy levels (a) E = 0.17, (b) E = 0.21 and (c) E = 0.22, of orbits
near the SPO1 mode of the graphene-type Hamiltonian.

our Hamiltonian (3) for q = 2, m = K = D = 1 and orbit, the solutions eventually wander over a much
C = −D describing N = 5 particles with graphene- larger chaotic region that spreads over most of the
type interactions. In Fig. 5 we present phase space available phase space of the system [Antonopou-
plots (xi (t), ẋi (t)), for i ∈ {1, 2, 3} for the first three los et al., 2006]. It is important to emphasize that
particles of the lattice at various energy levels, for entirely similar results are obtained when we con-
orbits with ICs of the form of Eq. (26) with x2 (0) = sider small displacements about the SPO2 orbit
0.01. Note that, at E = 0.17, the SPO1 mode is with N = 5.
still stable as the perturbed solution remains close Furthermore, if the motion near the unstable
to the periodic solution at distances comparable to SPO1 mode is chaotic, one would expect chaos
the initial displacement. At E = 0.21, however, the to be much “weaker” for orbits lying within the
SPO1 has certainly turned unstable, as the per- “figure-8” than those that spread over all of phase
turbed solution is oscillating at amplitudes that are space. Indeed, we have confirmed these expecta-
significantly larger than the initial ones. Finally, at tions by computing the corresponding Lyapunov
E = 0.22 chaos has clearly spread over all of the spectra (see Fig. 13 in Sec. 4) and verified that
available phase space, where the oscillations of all these two domains have truly distinct characteris-
particles become indistinguishable. tics: For the “figure-8” region, a single positive Lya-
What is remarkable here with regard to punov exponent is found and the remaining four
Fig. 5(b) is that, although the corresponding SPO1 converge to zero, while in the case of the larger
is clearly unstable, its nearby orbits remain within chaotic domain, four Lyapunov exponents are pos-
a limited domain surrounding this mode, and wan- itive and only one tends to zero, after sufficiently
der about it chaotically! This is highly reminiscent long integration times.
of similar results obtained for the FPUT lattice in Having thus tested the validity of our numer-
[Antonopoulos et al., 2006]. Indeed, as in the case ical stability criterion, we now employ it to deter-
of the FPUT 5 particle SPO1 mode, if we choose mine the first stability transitions of the SPO1 and
initial conditions very close to the unstable periodic SPO2 orbits of the graphene-type lattice as a func-
orbit, at energies where it has just become unstable, tion of the number of particles N . Earlier stud-
we observe that the chaotic orbits remain within ies on the FPUT lattice [Antonopoulos & Bountis,
a limited region shaped as a thin “figure-8” on a 2006] have shown that the destabilization energy
Poincaré surface of section (x1 , ẋ1 ) taken at times per particle hcN = E cN /N goes to zero by a power
when x3 = 0, as we see in Fig. 6. law as N increases, proportional to N −1 for the
Moreover, just as in the FPUT case, starting SPO1 case and N −2 for SPO2. As it turns out,
at points a little further away from the “figure-8” the situation for the graphene-type lattice is quite

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A. Bountis et al.

Fig. 6. The “figure-8” chaotic orbit shown here arises near the SPO1 of an N = 5 graphene lattice for ICs at a distance
|| = 10−5 from the SPO. It clearly displays small-scale chaos, while, starting from ICs a little further away (|| = 10−2 ), the
orbits spread over much larger chaotic domains. The Poincaré surface of section (x1 , ẋ1 ) shown here is computed at times when
x3 = 0, with total energy E = 0.21, corresponding to what is shown in the middle plot of Fig. 5. The orbits were integrated
up to t = 2.5 × 104 .

different: Although the first destabilization energy, as periodic solutions of (3) with m = K = 1,
for both modes, falls to zero following a power law q = 13 and C = λ = 1.04. It is important to
hcN = E cN /N ∝ N −α , it does so with nearly the emphasize that, in all cases we tested, the results
same exponent α ≈ 1.72, as we can see in Fig. 7. described were found to be in very good agreement
with the predictions of local stability analysis (see
Appendix A).
3.2. Hollomon-type interactions Our aim is to determine in a similar way the
Let us turn now to our nonanalytic Hamiltonian critical energy per particle hcN = E cN /N at which
describing Hollomon-type interactions, and apply these fundamental modes change their stability.
the stability criterion described in the previous Remarkably, right from the start, we encounter a
subsections to study its SPO1 and SPO2 modes, surprising result, which is contrary to all other

Fig. 7. Logarithmic plot of the obtained approximations of destabilization energies per particle hcN = E cN /N for the graphene
lattice, superimposed with the power law ∝ N −1.72 .

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

(a) (b)
Fig. 8. Plot of the maximum oscillation amplitudes observed when applying small perturbations to the exact SPO1 solution
of: (a) a 7-particle graphene lattice and (b) a 7-particle Hollomon lattice with q = 13 . In (a) the destabilization at E c7 ≈ 0.218,
and in (b) the stabilization energy at E c7 ≈ 37.5 are indicated with a red line.

Hamiltonian lattices studied so far: The SPO1 and comparison purposes we show the corresponding
SPO2 modes are unstable at low energies and first stability transition for the SPO1 orbit of a N = 7
become stable at energy values that increase as N particle graphene lattice in Fig. 8(a).
increases! This becomes evident by applying our One possible explanation for this behavior is
numerical criterion to the SPO1 mode of a N = 7 the fact that the dynamics of the Hollomon lat-
particle Hollomon lattice, see Fig. 8(b). Starting tice, for small displacements, is governed by the
with small displacements, we find that the oscil- terms |xj+1 − xj |q+1 , which for 0 ≤ q < 1 can be
lations about this mode grow indicating instability, larger than the harmonic terms and may thus be
until the energy reaches a value E c7 ≈ 37.5. For responsible for the instability of the system at low

Fig. 9. Logarithmic plot of the approximate energies per particle hcN = E cN /N where the first stabilization of SPO1 and
SPO2 happens for the Hollomon lattice, showing a power law behavior of the form ∝ N β , with β ≈ 2.68 (dashed line).

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A. Bountis et al.

Fig. 10. Logarithmic plot of the obtained approximations of SPO1 stabilization energies per particle hcN = E cN /N , for various
values of q ∈ { 13 , 35 , 57 } for the Hollomon lattice.

energies. As the energy grows, however, for fixed N , models. In the case of the graphene 1D lattice,
the harmonic terms in the potential become domi- after introducing numerical criteria to locate where
nant, which might explain why the motion becomes transitions happen, we noted that at energies just
stable and remains so at all energies above the sta- above destabilization, the motion near the SPOs
bilization threshold. does not wander over large distances in phase space,
Thus, our next task is to calculate the criti- but remains in a regime termed “weakly chaotic”
cal energy per particle hcN = E cN /N at which the in previous works on FPUT models [Antonopoulos
first transition to stability occurs. Estimating the et al., 2006; Bountis & Skokos, 2012]. It is only when
stabilization energies per particle for SPO1 and we start at further distances from the SPO that
SPO2 and plotting them in a double logarithmic the orbits begin to wander over a wider domain of
scale in Fig. 9, we find that they grow monotoni- phase space, exhibiting what we might call “strong
cally with N , both following nearly equal asymp- chaos”.
totic power laws of the form N 2.68 . In previous works [Antonopoulos et al., 2006;
Finally, it is interesting to investigate the effect Bountis & Skokos, 2012], a clear distinction was
of the exponent q = 2s−1 2s+1 , s ∈ N on the first stabi- made between “weak” and “strong” chaos by study-
lization energies of the SPOs. Results for s = 1, 2, 3 ing their spectra of Lyapunov exponents (LEs)
are presented in Fig. 10. The curves of SPO1 stabi- which differ significantly. Thus, in this section, we
lization energies per particle hcN for large enough N perform a similar investigation to reveal the global
are well fitted by power laws, so that hcN = αN β ⇒ dynamical properties of the SPOs of the graphene-
hcN ∝ N β . The approximation of the exponents are type Hamiltonian studied in Sec. 3.1 just after their
β = 2.68, 5.58, 9.61 for q = 13 , 35 , 57 , respectively. first destabilization.
Clearly, for low values of N , as q → 1, the stabi- As is well-known, the Lyapunov spectrum for
lization energies per particle become smaller, as the an orbit of an N -degree of freedom autonomous
effect of the harmonic terms begins to dominate at Hamiltonian system consists of 2N LEs λ(k) , k =
lower energies. However, as N increases, the behav- 1, 2, . . . , 2N , which measure the mean exponential
ior of the system tends to coincide for all the above rate of divergence (or convergence) of orbits in
choices of the exponent q. the immediate vicinity of the studied solution (see
[Benettin et al., 1976; Benettin et al., 1980a, 1980b;
4. Lyapunov Exponents and Global Skokos, 2010; Pikovski & Politi, 2016] and refer-
Stability for the Graphene Model ences therein). The LEs come in pairs of opposite
sign values
We have been interested so far in the first
de(re)stabilization of the SPOs of our nonanalytic λ(k) = −λ(2N −k+1) , k = 1, 2, . . . , 2N, (28)

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

2N (k) least twice differentiable, which is not the case for
so that k=1 λ = 0, with the largest N LEs
ordered as the Hamiltonians considered in this study. Thus, we
employ the so-called two-particle method [Benettin
λ(1) ≥ λ(2) ≥ · · · ≥ λ(N −1) ≥ λ(N ) = 0. (29) et al., 1976; Mei & Huang, 2018], which is based
The studied orbit is said to be chaotic if at least one on the simultaneous evolution of the studied orbit,
of its LEs is positive, which means that the maxi- along with several ones close by.
mum Lyapunov exponent (MLE) λ(1) > 0. On the For the numerical computation of the LEs,
other hand, if λ(1) = 0 the orbit is said to be regular. we evolve all required orbits by implementing
If, besides the MLE, more exponents are positive the SABA2 symplectic integrator (SI) of order 2
λ(k) > 0, k = 2, 3, . . . , k < N , then it follows [Laskar & Robutel, 2001]. Given a particular orbit,
that there are k directions (in an orthogonal refer- with ICs for x and ẋ at t = 0 denoted by X(0),
ence frame moving with the orbit), along which the we choose an appropriate number of nearby orbits,
(k)
motion is exponentially unstable. Thus, one might X̃(k) (0) at distance d0 = X(0) − X̃(k) (0) ≈
−8
argue that the higher the k the “more chaotic” is 10 , to keep the magnitude of the deviation vector
a given orbit, as more directions exist along which small and ensure the accurate evaluation of the LEs
nearby solutions can exponentially deviate away [Mei & Huang, 2018]. The phase space coordinates
from it. of these nearby orbits are randomly chosen from a
The values λ(k) of the LEs are obtained as the uniform distribution. All orbits are integrated up to
time limits the final time t = 105 with an integration time step
τ = 5 × 10−4 , which keeps the value of the relative
λ(k) = lim Λ(k) , (30)
t→∞ energy error
 
of appropriately computed quantities Λ(k) , usually  H(t) − H(0) 

Er (t) =  , (31)
refereed to as the finite time LEs (ftLEs). These H(0) 
quantities can, for example, be evaluated by the so-
called “standard method” (see e.g. [Benettin et al., smaller than 10−8 .
1980b; Skokos, 2010]). Typically this computation The computation of the MLE offers an alter-
is done through the numerical solution of the so- native way to investigate the stability changes of
called variational equations (see Appendix A for SPOs and corroborate the results in Sec. 3 (e.g.
more details), which govern the time evolution of Figs. 7 and 9), as λ(1) > 0 (λ(1) = 0) corresponds to
small perturbations from the studied orbit. A draw- an unstable (stable) periodic orbit. Typical exam-
back of this approach, however, is that it requires ples of these behaviors are shown in Fig. 11 where
the Hamiltonian function to be continuous, and at we present the ftMLE evolution for the SPO1 of

(a) (b)

Fig. 11. Time evolution (in log–log scale) of the ftMLE Λ(1) (t) of the SPO1 with energy (a) E = 0.1305 and (b) E = 0.2130,
respectively below and above the orbit’s first destabilization energy E c5 ≈ 0.21, for the Hamiltonian describing graphene-type
interactions. In both panels the dashed straight line corresponds to a function ∝ t−1 . The insets show the time evolution of
the relative energy error Er (t) of Eq. (31).

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A. Bountis et al.

the graphene Hamiltonian model with N = 5 at orbit, and find how it varies as the system’s energy
energies E = 0.1305 [Fig. 11(a)] and E = 0.2130 and dimensionality change. Thus, to apply this to a
[Fig. 11(b)] respectively below and above the energy stable SPO we consider orbits whose ICs are located
E5c ≈ 0.21 of the SPO’s first destabilization. In further and further away in phase space from the
Fig. 11(a) we see that eventually Λ(1) ∝ 1/t, which SPO (the distance d between the two ICs is com-
is the typical asymptotic evolution of the ftMLE for puted as the usual Euclidean distance of points in
regular orbits (see e.g. [Skokos, 2010]), so that in the multidimensional spaces) and determine their regu-
large time limit λ(1) = 0. This behavior clearly indi- lar or chaotic nature. Then, the width of the regular
cates that the orbit is stable. On the other hand, region is quantified by the largest d value (denoted
for E = 0.2130 [Fig. 11(b)] the ftMLE converges by Dm ) for which the nearby orbit is regular.
towards a fixed positive value, which at time t = 105 In Fig. 12, we present results for the Dm of the
is λ(1) ≈ 0.014. This behavior suggests that the regular region around an SPO1 of the Hamiltonian
SPO1 is unstable. describing graphene-type interactions. Obviously in
Both results are in accordance with the classifi- multidimensional spaces there are many directions
cation of the SPO1 orbits presented in Sec. 3. Note along which one can depart from the SPO. In par-
that for both orbits of Fig. 11 the energy is con- ticular, in Fig. 12 we choose two such directions
served to very good accuracy as Er  10−8 up to described by two different types of ICs in the neigh-
t = 105 [see insets of Figs. 11(a) and 11(b)]. Based borhood of the SPO1 orbit. For the first type (IC1 )
on these results, as well as similar computations per- we perturb the positions of only the fixed parti-
formed for other N values (also for the Hollomon- cles by the same amount, attributing to each one of
type lattice, not presented here), we set Λ(1) = 10−4 these displacements a random sign, appropriately
as an empirical threshold value of the ftMLE for adjusting the position of the first particle in order
discriminating between regular (Λ(1) < 10−4 ) and to achieve the desired energy value. For the sec-
chaotic (Λ(1) ≥ 10−4 ) behaviors for orbits evolved ond approach (IC2 ), we perturb the momenta of all
up to t = 105 . Using this criterion, we were able particles, in the way described above, also correct-
to verify the validity of the power laws shown in ing the position of the first particle to achieve the
Figs. 7 and 9. appropriate energy.
In general, the majority of orbits in the vicinity In Fig. 12(a), we show the dependence of Dm
of a stable SPO are regular. Hence, the computa- on the system’s energy density for the SPO1 with
tion of their MLE allows us to estimate the “size” of N = 5 when the IC1 (blue curve) and the IC2 (green
regions of regular behavior around a stable periodic curve) are used. Both approaches produce values of

(a) (b)
Fig. 12. Dependence of the “size” Dm of the regular region around the stable SPO1 of the graphene-type Hamiltonian on
(a) the system’s energy density hN for N = 5 and (b) the number of degrees of freedom N for hN = 0.0039. In each panel
two types of ICs are considered: IC1 (blue curves) and IC2 (green curves) [see text for details]. The red dashed line in (a)
indicates the energy density hcN = 0.042 of the first SPO1 destabilization.

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

energy density, namely hN = 0.0039. A decrease

of Dm for growing N values is observed for both
types of ICs, with Dm vanishing at N = 39, as
the energy density of the first destabilization of the
SPO1 becomes smaller than hN = 0.0039.
Let us now study the properties of the spec-
trum of LEs to investigate the onset of large scale
(or “strong”) chaos in the 1D graphene model. We
present results for this model as our numerical com-
putations proved to be more accurate and stable for
it, but similar behaviors were also observed for the
Hollomon-type interaction model.
We start by computing the spectrum of LEs
Fig. 13. The spectrum of the averaged (over the final stage for the two chaotic orbits depicted in Fig. 6, the
of their numerical evolution) LEs Λ(k) , k = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, of weakly chaotic one, with ICs given by Eq. (26),
the “figure-8” (red curve) and the large scale chaos (gray whose phase space distance from the unstable SPO1
curve) orbits of Fig. 6, having respectively initial phase space is d =  = 10−5 , along with the orbit resulting in
distances d = 10−5 and d = 10−2 from the SPO1. The dashed large scale chaos with d = 10−2 . The LEs, which are
horizontal line represents the level above which we consider
a LE to be strongly positive. The error bars indicate one
shown in Fig. 13, were obtained by computations
standard deviation. up to t = 105 and by averaging the data during the
last 103 time units of the evolution. The error bars
in Fig. 14 (actually only one is clearly visible) cor-
Dm of the same order of magnitude (Dm ≈ 10−1 ), respond to one standard deviation of this process.
with IC1 giving slightly higher results. Although From the results of this figure we see that for the
in both cases the Dm curves are not smooth, a weakly chaotic orbit located closer to the SPO1 (red
clear decreasing tendency of Dm for increasing hN curve), only the MLE Λ(1) is practically positive
values is visible, with Dm vanishing, as expected, (Λ(1) > 10−4 ). On the other hand, the chaotic orbit
for hN = 0.042 [red dashed line in Fig. 12(a)] which located further away from the SPO1 (gray curve in
corresponds to the energy density of the first desta- Fig. 14), which covers a larger phase space domain
bilization of SPO1. In Fig. 12(b), we depict the in Fig. 6, has four positive LEs (as the fifth should
dependence of Dm on N for a fixed value of the be by default zero; see for example [Skokos, 2010]).

(a) (b)

Fig. 14. The spectrum of the averaged (over the final stage of their numerical evolution) LEs Λ(k) , k = 1, 2, . . . , N , of orbits
in the neighborhood of the unstable (a) SPO1 and (b) SPO2, for the graphene Hamiltonian with N = 17 and for various
energy levels E = E c17 + ΔE. E c17 = 0.18765 is the energy of the first destabilization of both SPOs. The dashed horizontal line
in both panels represents the level above which we consider a LE to be strongly positive. The error bars indicate one standard
deviation.

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A. Bountis et al.

In order to investigate further the chaoticity of linear normal modes of the system. Furthermore,
orbits in the neighborhood of unstable SPOs we we wished to compare these two systems with what
consider the particular case of N = 17 for which is known in the literature for FPUT type lat-
the energy of first destabilization for both the SPO1 tices, whose (analytic) potentials consist of quartic
and the SPO2 orbits is E c17 ≈ 0.18765. Moving nearest neighbor interactions added to the harmonic
to higher energies, we explore the neighborhood ones.
of both unstable SPOs. In particular, we set the The two SPOs we chose to study are the
energy to be E = E c17 + ΔE (ΔE > 0) and con- ones that were also analyzed for FPUT systems
sider orbits starting in the immediate vicinity of in [Antonopoulos & Bountis, 2006; Antonopoulos
the SPOs. The initial conditions for these orbits et al., 2006; Bountis & Skokos, 2012]: The SPO1
are chosen so that their phase space distances from periodic solution, where every other particle is fixed
the SPOs are d ≈ 10−2 . This is achieved by start- while the ones about it perform the same oscil-
ing with the ICs of the SPO, perturbing the posi- lation x̂1 (t) in opposite directions, and the SPO2
tions of every fixed particle by the same small value solution, where between two stationary ones there
and appropriately changing the position of the first are two moving out of phase with respect to each
oscillator to retain the specific energy value. other, with the same x̂2 (t). These are continuations
The results of our numerical simulations are of the (N +1)/2 and 2(N +1)/3 linear normal modes
depicted in Fig. 14 where we plot the spectra of LEs respectively and are distinguished by the fact that
for various energy values for orbits in the neighbor- they are very easy to find: All one has to do is solve
hood of the unstable SPO1 [Fig. 14(a)] and SPO2 a single, second order nonlinear ODE for x̂1 (t) (or
[Fig. 14(b)]. In Fig. 14, we clearly see that close to x̂2 (t)). What is particularly interesting is that these
the destabilization energy, e.g. for ΔE = 0.0035 in two SPOs, although quite different from each other,
Fig. 14(a) (SPO1) and ΔE = 0.0061 in Fig. 14(b) share a lot of common dynamical properties.
(SPO2), small scale (“weak”) chaos occurs, charac- In the case of the graphene-type lattice they
terized by only the MLE being practically positive are stable at low energies and experience a first
(Λ(1) > 10−4 ). We note that for these two cases destabilization at energies per particle EN c /N that

the computed spectrum of LEs in not constantly decrease, as N increases, by power laws with nearly
decreasing, as Eq. (29) indicates. This is due to equal exponents, i.e. ∝ N −1.72 . This is quite dif-
well-known practical limitations of the two-particle ferent than the FPUT 1D lattices, for which this
method in accurately computing chaos indices, like decay is ∝ N −1 for the SPO1 solution and ∝ N −2
the LEs, for very weak chaotic behaviors [Mei & for the SPO2. On the other hand, the corresponding
Huang, 2018]. As the energy E increases, more LEs results for the Hollomon lattice are strikingly dis-
become larger than 10−4 indicating the onset of tinct: First of all, both SPO1 and SPO2 are unsta-
“strong” chaos in the neighborhood of both SPOs. ble at low energies and first stabilize along curves of
Thus, we conclude from these results that in this the form EN c /N ∝ N 2.68 ! This might be explained

case “strong” chaos is present for ΔE  0.004 in by the fact that the Hollomon term in the poten-
the case of SPO1 and ΔE  0.015 for the SPO2 tial has a power smaller than 2 and is dominant for
orbit. small energies, while for higher energies the har-
monic terms apparently become more important
and dominate the dynamics.
5. Discussion So much for local stability. Studying what hap-
In this work, we have studied two Hamiltonian sys- pens near the SPOs of the graphene model imme-
tems consisting of N particle systems in one dimen- diately after they become unstable, we have discov-
sion, whose interaction potential includes terms ered (just as in the case of FPUT systems) that
that are nonanalytic functions of the position coor- chaotic orbits do not immediately spread over large
dinates. The first one concerns “graphene-type” domains in phase space, but remain for long times
materials and the second MEMS satisfying Hol- close to the SPO exhibiting what one might call
lomon’s power-law of “work-hardening”. Our main “weak” chaos. For larger displacements, however,
purpose was to study their dynamics concentrat- (or longer integration times) nearby orbits eventu-
ing on the stability properties of two SPOs, which ally escape to much larger phase space domains of
are nonlinear continuations of the corresponding “strong” chaos.

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

To justify our heuristic terminology of “weak” Acknowledgments

versus “strong” chaos in the graphene model, we
We acknowledge useful discussions with Professor
analyzed the spectra of Lyapunov exponents in dif- Christos Spitas and partial support for this work by
ferent domains and found, just as in the FPUT case, funds from the Ministry of Education and Science
that when the motion remains close to an SPO that of Kazakhstan, in the context of the project VSAT
has just turned unstable only the largest exponent (2018-2020) and the Nazarbayev University internal
converges to a positive number while the smaller grant HYST (2018-2021). T. Oikonomou acknowl-
ones continue to decrease. However, as the motion edges the FDCR Grant (090118FD5350) and the
begins to spread to larger distances, all LEs begin to state-targeted program “Center of Excellence for
attain values comparable to the maximal exponent. Fundamental and Applied Physics” (BR05236454)
Motivated by these results, we believe that a by the Ministry of Education and Science of
number of interesting directions remain open for the Republic of Kazakhstan. B. M. Manda and
future work: First of all, more SPOs need to be Ch. Skokos acknowledge support from the National
studied to claim that our findings about SPO1 and Research Foundation of South Africa and thank the
SPO2 have more general implications concerning High Performance Computing facility of the Uni-
the dynamics of the lattices studied here. This is, of versity of Cape Town and the Center for High Per-
course, quite challenging since locating SPOs of N D formance Computing of South Africa for providing
Hamiltonians is not an easy task. One might start their computational resources.
from SPOs whose equations reduce to two coupled
second order ODEs and apply methods for find-
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the amplitude of the forcing exceeds certain thresh- lin. Phen. Compl. Syst. 9, 209–239.
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Linear Stability Analysis
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we outline this approach in the present Appendix,
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Macı́as Dı́az, J. E. & Bountis, A. [2018] “On the trans- the predictions of our numerical criterion. Entirely
mission of energy in β-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam chains with analogous results were obtained for the SPO1 and
different ranges of particle interactions,” Commun. SPO2 of the graphene lattice. We were thus able
Nonlin. Sci. Numer. Simulat. 63, 307–321. to check that the analytical estimates regarding
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characteristic exponents computed by the two-particle very close to what one finds using the numerical
method,” Comput. Phys. Commun. 224, 108–118. criterion of Sec. 3. Thus, for most of the results
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stability analysis.
Tool to Explore Complex Dynamics (Cambridge Uni- Let us recall first that to obtain numerically
versity Press). stable results when integrating Eq. (4), we need to
Shelupsky, D. [1959] “A generalization of the trigono- approximate the sign function by sgn(x − x0 ) ≈
metric functions,” The American Math. Month. 66, tanh[τ (x − x0 )] for a value of τ > 0 large enough
879884. (τ = 100 suffices). In that case, Eq. (4) takes the

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Stability Properties of 1-Dimensional Hamiltonian Lattices with Nonanalytic Potentials

form writing Eqs. (A.1) in the general form mj ẍj = Gj ,

mj ẍj = K(xj−1 − 2xj + xj+1 ) we obtain the (linear) so-called variational equa-
tions expressed in terms of the elements of the Jaco-
− C[|xj − xj−1 |q tanh[τ (xj − xj−1 )] bian matrix of G as follows:
− |xj+1 − xj |q tanh[τ (xj+1 − xj )]]. ε̈j =
∂Gj
εj−1 +
∂Gj
εj +
∂Gj
εj+1 ,
(A.1) ∂xj−1 ∂xj ∂xj+1
Indeed, the equations of motion in Eqs. (4) j = 1, . . . , N, ε0 = εN +1 = 0, (A.2)
and (A.1) are found to match as τ → ∞ due to
limτ →∞ tanh[τ (x − x0 )] = sgn(x − x0 ). about our T -periodic solution, omitting higher
Let us now express the solution of Eq. (A.1) order terms in εj , which are considered negligi-
as a small perturbation from a T -periodic SPO ble [Antonopoulos & Bountis, 2006; Antonopoulos
under study, i.e. xj = x̂j + εj , where εj denotes a et al., 2006; Bountis & Skokos, 2012]. In the present
small variation of the solution at the jth site. Then, case, the elements of the Jacobian matrix appearing
in Eq. (A.2) are given by

∂Gj
(x = x̂) = k(δ ,j−1 − 2δ ,j +δ ,j+1 )
∂x

tanh[τ (x̂j − x̂j−1 )] τ
− λ |x̂j − x̂j−1 |q (δ ,j −δ ,j−1 ) q + 2
x̂j − x̂j−1 cosh [τ (x̂j − x̂j−1 )]

q tanh[τ (x̂j+1 − x̂j )] τ
− |x̂j+1 − x̂j | (δ ,j+1 − δ ,j ) q + , (A.3)
x̂j+1 − x̂j cosh2 [τ (x̂j+1 − x̂j )]

where = 1, . . . , N and δ ,j is the Kronecker delta

function. Solving numerically Eq. (A.2) over one of x̂j (t), which are obtained solving simultaneously
period of the oscillations, T , we obtain a matrix Eq. (4), or its approximation Eq. (A.1). After inte-
connecting the variations at t = 0 with those at gration over a single period T , the elements of
t = T called the monodromy matrix M (T ) of the the monodromy matrix are calculated as Mij (T ) =
(j)
periodic solution. The elements of this matrix are Z2N (T ).
determined as follows: We first rewrite Eq. (A.2), As is well-known [Skokos, 2001; Bountis &
ε̈j = Fj (x̂(t), ε(t)), as a system of two first order Skokos, 2012], the eigenvalues of this matrix allow
differential equations of the form ε̇j = ηj , η̇j = Fj , us to determine the local stability properties of the
and express the obtained system in matrix form, SPO under investigation, as follows: Since the orig-
as Żi (t) = Mij (t)Zj (t), where Mij (t) are the ele- inal system is Hamiltonian, M (T ) is a symplectic
ments of the 2N × 2N monodromy matrix, while matrix with determinant +1 (or −1). Its eigenval-
Zj are the elements of the vector Z2N = (ε1 , η1 , . . . , ues arise in complex conjugate pairs and the SPO
εN , ηN )T . The resulting initial value problem is is linearly stable if all eigenvalues lie on the unit
(1) (2)
thus given as Z2N (0) = (1, 0, . . . , 0)T 2N , Z2N (0) =
circle. However, as the total energy of the system
(2N ) E varies, some of the eigenvalues split off the unit
(0, 1, . . . , 0)T T
2N , . . . , Z2N (0) = (0, 0, . . . , 1)2N . To
circle and the SPO becomes unstable.
solve the above matrix differential equation prob-
lem, we need at each integration step the values

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