DOE OSTI2017
In this paper, we propose two ways to construct fractional differential equations (FDE) for approximating atomic chain dynamics. Taking harmonic chain as an example, we add a power function of fractional order to Taylor expansion of the dispersion relation, and determine the parameters by matching two selected wave numbers. This approximate function leads to an FDE after considering both directions for wave propagation. As an alternative, we consider the symbol of the force term, and approximate it by a similar function. It also induces an FDE. Both approaches produce excellent agreement with the harmonic chain dynamics. The accuracy may be improved by optimizing the selected wave numbers, or starting with higher order Taylor expansions. When resolved in the lattice constant, the resulting FDE's faithfully reproduce the lattice dynamics. When resolved in a coarse grid instead, they systematically generate homogenized algorithms. Numerical tests are performed to verify the proposed approaches. Moreover, FDE's are also constructed for diatomic chain and anharmonic lattice, to illustrate the generality of the proposed approaches. - Highlights: • Match the dispersion relation of linear chain by power function of fractional order, added on low order Taylor expansion. • Design FDE by approximating dispersion relation, or the symbol for the force term. • Solve the FDE by algorithm of spectral accuracy. • Obtain faithful and systematical homogenization when resolved at coarser grid. • Applies to general lattices: complex, nonlinear and multidimensional.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗