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Updated: Apr 22, 2026

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
Modulational instability and resonant wave modes act on the metastability of oscillator chains
Torsten Gross1, Dirk Hennig2, Lutz Schimansky-Geier1
1Department of Physics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, D-12489 Berlin, Germany.
Abstract:
We describe the emergence and interactions of breather modes and resonant wave modes within a two-dimensional ringlike oscillator chain in a microcanonical situation. Our analytical results identify different dynamical regimes characterized by the potential dominance of either type of mode. The chain is initially placed in a metastable state, which it can leave by passing over the brim of the applied Mexican-hat-like potential. We elucidate the influence of the different wave modes on the mean-first passage time. A central finding is that also in this complex potential landscape a fast noise-free escape scenario solely relying on nonlinear cooperative effects is accomplishable even in a low-energy setting.
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