Energy Relaxation in Fermi-Pasta-Ulam Arrays

The dynamics of energy relaxation in thermalized one- and two-dimensional arrays with nonlinear interactions depend in detail on the interactions and, in some cases, on dimensionality. We describe and explain these differences for arrays of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam type. In particular, we focus on the roles of harmonic contributions to the interactions and of breathers in the relaxation process.