Thermal resonance in signal transmission

Abstract

We use temperature tuning to control signal propagation in simple one-dimensional arrays of masses connected by hard anharmonic springs and with no local potentials. In our numerical model a sustained signal is applied at one site of a chain immersed in a thermal environment and the signal-to-noise ratio is measured at each oscillator. We show that raising the temperature can lead to enhanced signal propagation along the chain, resulting in thermal resonance effects akin to the resonance observed in arrays of bistable systems.