Boundary effects on the dynamics of chains of coupled oscillators

We study the dynamics of a chain of coupled particles subjected to a restoring force (Klein–Gordon lattice) in the cases of either periodic or Dirichlet boundary conditions. Precisely, we prove that, when the initial data are of small amplitude and have a long wavelength, the main part of the solution is interpolated by a solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which in turn has the property that its Fourier coefficients decay exponentially. The first order correction to the solution has Fourier coefficients that decay exponentially in the periodic case, but only as a power in the Dirichlet case. In particular our result allows one to explain the numerical computations of the paper (Bambusi et al 2007 Phys. Lett. A).