Scaling and decay in periodically driven scattering systems

We investigate irregular scattering in a periodically driven Hamiltonian system of one degree of freedom. The potential is asymptotically attracting, so there exist parabolically escaping scattering orbits, i.e. orbits with asymptotic energy E(out)=0. The scattering functions (i.e. the asymptotic out-variables as functions of an asymptotic in-variable) show a characteristic algebraic scaling in the vicinity of these orbits. This behavior is explained by asymptotic properties of the interaction. As a consequence, the number N(Deltat) of temporarily bound particles decays algebraically with the delay time Deltat, although no KAM scenario can be found in phase space. On the other hand, we find the number N(n) of temporarily bound particles to decay exponentially with the number n of zeros of x(t).