Threshold field in nucleation process for an inhomogeneous deformable nonlinear Klein-Gordon system

Abstract

We investigate the effect of local inhomogeneity on the nucleation process of kink-antikink pairs in the driven nonlinear Klein-Gordon model with the Remoissenet-Peyrard substrate potential, whose shape can be varied as a function of the shape parameter and which has the sine-Gordon shape as a particular case. From numerical integrations of the model equations under defined conditions, the configuration of the critical nucleus in the presence of a localized inhomogeneity is determined and shown to be affected by the shape parameter of the substrate potential. The expression of the depinning threshold field of kink-antikink pairs, which is the value of the applied field at which the process of the nucleation of kink-antikink pairs takes place, is also obtained. The dependence of this depinning threshold field on the shape parameter r shows that it strongly increases, for small intensity of the impurity potential when the shape of the substrate potential deviates from the sinusoidal one.