title: Driven kinks in discrete chains: phonon damping.
abstract: Phonon radiation is shown numerically to damp the motion of a relativistically driven straight phi(4) soliton, even in the extremely weak discreteness limit. At higher discreteness, the soliton mobility is characterized by a discontinuous dependence on the driving force; jumps are related to phonon and breather-radiation thresholds. Moreover, the speed of a frictionless soliton cannot be lowered below a certain threshold value, or else it might get trapped between two adjacent chain sites.
authors: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Perugia, I-06123 Perugia, Italy.
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Cattuto
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Costantini
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Guidi
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Marchesoni