Diffusion times and stability exponents for nearly integrable analytic systems

For a positive integer n and R>0, we set . Given R>1 and n≥4 we construct a sequence of analytic perturbations (H _j ) of the completely integrable Hamiltonian on , with unstable orbits for which we can estimate the time of drift in the action space. These functions H _j are analytic on a fixed complex neighborhood V of , and setting the time of drift of these orbits is smaller than (C(1/ɛ _j )^1/2(n-3)) for a fixed constant c>0. Our unstable orbits stay close to a doubly resonant surface, the result is therefore almost optimal since the stability exponent for such orbits is 1/2(n−2). An analogous result for Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms is also proved. Two main ingredients are used in order to deal with the analytic setting: a version of Sternberg's conjugacy theorem in a neighborhood of a normally hyperbolic manifold in a symplectic system, for which we give a complete (and seemingly new) proof; and Easton windowing method that allow us to approximately localize the wandering orbits and estimate their speed of drift.