Pseudo-billiards

A new class of Hamiltonian dynamical systems with two degrees of freedom and kinetic energy of the form T = c₁|p₁| + c₂|p₂| (called “pseudo-billiards”) is studied. For any kind of interaction, the canonical equations can always be integrated on sequential time intervals; i.e. in principle all the trajectories can be found explicitly.

Depending on the potential, a dynamical system of this class can either be completely integrable or behave just as a usual non-integrable Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom: in its phase space there exist invariant tori, stochastic layers, domains of global chaos, etc. Pseudo-billiard models of both the types are considered.

If a potential of a pseudo-billiard system has critical points (equilibria), then trajectories close to these points (“loops”) can exist; they can be treated as images of self-localized objects with finite duration. Such a model (with quartic potential) is also studied.