Intrinsic localized excitations in nonlinear lattices: Heuristic explanation for the nature of polar nanoregions?

The study is addressed to a topical problem of self-localization in condensed state with special emphasis on a class of complex oxides categorized as ferroelectric relaxors. Basically, their anomalous temperature response is associated with the dynamics of microscopic scale polar regions supported by somewhat artificial metastable configurations. A unified approach to the spontaneous emergence and stability of the polar nanoregions is assigned to intrinsic localized excitations in Hamiltonian lattices with nonlinearity and non-Gibbsian statistics as necessary and sufficient ingredients of the theory. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.