English

Topology in non-linear mechanical systems

Soft Condensed Matter 2021-08-18 v1

Abstract

Many advancements have been made in the field of topological mechanics. The majority of the works, however, concerns the topological invariant in a linear theory. We, in this work, present a generic prescription of defining topological indices which accommodates non-linear effects in mechanical systems without taking any approximation. Invoking the tools of differential geometry, a Z-valued quantity in terms of the Poincare-Hopf index, that features the topological invariant of non-linear zero modes (ZMs), is predicted. We further identify one type of topologically protected solitons that are robust to disorders. Our prescription constitutes a new direction of searching for novel topologically protected non-linear ZMs in the future.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2104.12778,
  title  = {Topology in non-linear mechanical systems},
  author = {Po-Wei Lo and Krishanu Roychowdhury and Bryan Gin-ge Chen and Christian D. Santangelo and Chao-Ming Jian and Michael J. Lawler},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.12778},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T01:32:13.445Z