Length scale competition in nonlinear Klein-Gordon models: a collective coordinate approach.

Working within the framework of nonlinear Klein-Gordon models as a paradigmatic example, we show that length scale competition, an instability of solitons subjected to perturbations of an specific length, can be understood by means of a collective coordinate approach in terms of soliton position and width. As a consequence, we provide a natural explanation of the phenomenon in much simpler terms than any previous treatment of the problem. Our technique allows us to study the existence of length scale competition in most soliton bearing nonlinear models and can be extended to coherent structures with more degrees of freedom.