Transport and generation of macroscopically modulated waves in diatomic chains

Abstract: We derive and justify analytically the dynamics of a small macroscopically modulated amplitude of a single plane wave in a nonlinear diatomic chain with stabilizing on-site potentials including the case where a wave generates another wave via self-interaction. More precisely, we show that in typical chains acoustical waves can generate optical but not acoustical waves, while optical waves are always closed with respect to self-interaction.