title: Nonlinear response of a linear chain to weak driving.
abstract: We study the escape of a chain of coupled units over the barrier of a metastable potential. It is demonstrated that a very weak external driving field with a suitably chosen frequency suffices to accomplish speedy escape. The latter requires passage through a transition state, the formation of which is triggered by permanent feeding of energy from a phonon background into humps of localized energy and elastic interaction of the arising breather solutions. In fact, cooperativity between the units of the chain entailing coordinated energy transfer is shown to be crucial for enhancing the rate of escape in an extremely effective and low-energy cost way where the effects of entropic localization and breather coalescence conspire.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hennig
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mulhern
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3HF, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: A D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Burbanks
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstraße 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schimansky-Geier