Perturbation analysis of weakly discrete kinks

We present a perturbation theory of kink solutions of discrete Klein-Gordon chains. The unperturbed solutions correspond to the kinks of the adjoint partial differential equation. The perturbation theory is based on a reformulation of the discrete chain problem into a partial differential equation with spatially modulated mass density. The first order corrections to the kink solutions are obtained analytically and are shown to agree with exact numerical results. We discuss the problem of calculating the Peierls-Nabarro barrier.