Kink-antikink asymmetry and impurity interactions in topological mechanical chains
Kink-antikink asymmetry and impurity interactions in topological mechanical chains
We study the dynamical response of a diatomic periodic chain of rotors coupled by springs, whose unit cell breaks spatial inversion symmetry. In the continuum description, we derive a nonlinear field theory which admits topological kinks and antikinks as nonlinear excitations but where a topological boundary term breaks the symmetry …