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Normal Modes of The FPUT System

This document derives the normal modes of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) system. It begins by presenting the quadratic Lagrangian of the FPUT system. It then makes an ansatz that the normal modes can be written as a sum of cosine functions with frequencies ωl and amplitudes Al. Substituting this ansatz into the Lagrangian yields expressions that are summed to obtain the Lagrangian in terms of the amplitudes and frequencies of the normal modes.

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Harsh Vardhan
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18 views

Normal Modes of The FPUT System

This document derives the normal modes of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) system. It begins by presenting the quadratic Lagrangian of the FPUT system. It then makes an ansatz that the normal modes can be written as a sum of cosine functions with frequencies ωl and amplitudes Al. Substituting this ansatz into the Lagrangian yields expressions that are summed to obtain the Lagrangian in terms of the amplitudes and frequencies of the normal modes.

Uploaded by

Harsh Vardhan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NORMAL MODES OF THE FERMI-PASTA-ULAM-TSINGOU

SYSTEM

In this note, we will derive the normal modes of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou

(FPUT) system. The quadratic part of the FPUT Lagrangian is given by

N −1 N −1
1 X 2 1 X 2
L= q̇k − (qk+1 − qk ) with q0 = qN = 0. (1)
2 2
k=1 k=0

Since q0 = qN = 0, we try the following ansatz for the normal modes:

 πkl 
(l)
Qk = N Al cos(ωl t + δl ) sin ,
N
 πkl 
≡ N Al (t) sin , l = 1, . . . , N − 1. (2)
N

Here, l = 1, . . . , N − 1 labels the different normal modes. ωl is the normal mode

frequency and Al and δl are the amplitude and initial phase angle respectively. N

is a normalization factor to be determined. Substituting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1), we

get:

N −1 N −1
X 1 2 1 X  πkl 
q̇k = N 2 Ȧ2l (t) sin2 ,
2 2 N
k=1 k=1
N −1
1 2 2 2 2 X  πkl 
= N ωl Al sin (ωl t + δl ) sin2 , (3)
2 N
k=1
N −1  −1
 πl 2 NX
1 X 2 1 2 2  πkl 
(qk+1 − qk ) = N Al (t) 2 sin cos2 . (4)
2 2 2N N
k=0 k=0

Date: August 23rd , 2023.


1
2 NORMAL MODES OF THE FERMI-PASTA-ULAM-TSINGOU SYSTEM

The sums can be carried out as follows: Using cos2 x = (1+cos 2x)/2, sin2 x = (1−

cos 2x)/2, we can write

N −1 N −1 2πlk
X  πkl  X 1 + Re ei N N
cos2 = = , (5)
N 2 2
k=0 k=0
N −1  πkl  N −1  πkl  N −1   πkl 
X
2
X
2
X
2 N
sin = sin = 1 − cos = . (6)
N N N 2
k=1 k=0 k=0

Hence,

−1 N −1
N
" #
1 2 1 X
  πl 2
2N
X 2 2 2
q̇ − (qk+1 − qk ) = N Ȧl (t) − Al (t) 2 sin . (7)
2 k 2 4 2N
k=1 k=0

p
Choosing N = 2/N and ωl = 2 sin(πl/2N ), we end up with

1 2 1
L= Ȧ (t) − ωl2 A2l (t). (8)
2 l 2

The most general displacement qk (t) can be constructed as a linear combination of


(l)
the Qk ’s, namely
r N −1
2 X  πkl 
qk (t) = Al (t) sin . (9)
N N
l=1

Since the ωl , l = 1, . . . , N − 1 are non-degenerate, the different normal modes are

orthogonal. Hence, substituting the above equation into Eq. (1), we end up with

N −1  
X 1 2 1 2 2
L= Ȧ (t) − ωl Al (t) . (10)
2 l 2
l=1

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