On the specific heat of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam systems and their glassy behavior

The specific heat of Fermi-Pasta-Ulam systems has until now been estimated through the energy fluctuations of a suitable subsystem, and opposite answers were apparently provided concerning its possible vanishing for vanishing temperatures. In the present paper a more "realistic" numerical implementation of the specific heat measurement is discussed, which mimics the interaction of the FPU system with a calorimeter. It is found that there exists a "freezing" critical temperature below which the relaxation times to equilibrium between FPU system and calorimeter become relevant, so that the system presents aging and hysteresis features very similar to those familiar in glasses and spin glasses. In particular, in the framework of such a point of view involving finite long times, the specific heat appears to vanish for vanishing temperatures.