Chaotic behaviour of disordered nonlinear lattices

Abstract: This thesis focuses on the mechanisms of energy transport in multidimensional heterogeneous lattice models, studying in particular the case of the Klein-Gordon model of coupled anharmonic oscillators in one and two spatial dimensions. We report the effects of the type of the impurity (heterogeneity) parameter on the systems' transport properties and classifies the transport mechanisms of the nonlinear versions of the models into various dynamical regimes. We also identify computationally efficient numerical integration techniques, including the so-called symplectic integrators, and implement them for studying these models. Finally, we perform an extensive numerical investigation of the dynamics of the considered models revealing that for their nonlinear versions chaotic transport persists and chaotic hotspots meander in the region of energy concentration supporting the spreading mechanism.