{"paper":{"title":"Kink-antikink asymmetry and impurity interactions in topological mechanical chains","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cond-mat.soft","authors_text":"Bryan Gin-ge Chen, Nitin Upadhyaya, Vincenzo Vitelli, Yujie Zhou","submitted_at":"2016-08-06T16:37:38Z","abstract_excerpt":"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 between the two and energetically favors the kink configuration. Using a cobweb plot, we develop a fixed-point analysis for the kink motion and demonstrate that kinks propagate without the Peierls-Nabarro potential energy barrier typically associated with lattice m"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1608.02127","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}