Tunable fermi acceleration in the driven elliptical billiard

We explore the dynamical evolution of an ensemble of noninteracting particles propagating freely in an elliptical billiard with harmonically driven boundaries. The existence of Fermi acceleration is shown thereby refuting the established assumption that smoothly driven billiards whose static counterparts are integrable do not exhibit acceleration dynamics. The underlying mechanism based on intermittent phases of laminar and stochastic behavior of the strongly correlated angular momentum and velocity motion is identified and studied with varying parameters. The diffusion process in velocity space is shown to be anomalous and we find that the corresponding characteristic exponent depends monotonically on the breathing amplitude of the billiard boundaries. Thus it is possible to tune the acceleration law in a straightforwardly controllable manner.     

Effect of noise in open chaotic billiards

We investigate the effect of white-noise perturbations on chaotic trajectories in open billiards. We focus on the temporal decay of the survival probability for generic mixed-phase-space billiards. The survival probability has a total of five different decay regimes that prevail for different intermediate times. We combine new calculations and recent results on noise perturbed Hamiltonian systems to characterize the origin of these regimes and to compute how the parameters scale with noise intensity and billiard openness. Numerical simulations in the annular billiard support and illustrate our results.     

Spectral Gap for a Class of Random Billiards

A random billiard is a random dynamical system similar to an ordinary billiard system except that the standard specular reflection law is replaced with a more general stochastic operator specifying the post-collision distribution of velocities for any given pre-collision velocity. We consider such collision operators for certain random billiards that we call billiards with microstructure. Collisions modeled by these operators can still be thought of as elastic and time reversible. The operators are canonically determined by a second (deterministic) billiard system that models “microscopic roughness” on the billiard table boundary. Our main purpose here is to develop some general tools for the analysis of the collision operator of such random billiards. Among the main results, we give geometric conditions for these operators to be Hilbert-Schmidt and relate their spectrum and speed of convergence to stationary Markov chains with geometric features of the microscopic billiard structure. The relationship between spectral gap and the shape of the microstructure is illustrated with several simple examples.     

Nonequilibrium Gas and Generalized Billiards

Generalized billiards describe nonequilibrium gas, consisting of finitely many particles, that move in a container, whose walls heat up or cool down. Generalized billiards can be considered both in the framework of the Newtonian mechanics and of the relativity theory. In the Newtonian case, a generalized billiard may possess an invariant measure; the Gibbs entropy with respect to this measure is constant. On the contrary, generalized relativistic billiards are always dissipative,and the Gibbs entropy with respect to the same measure grows under some natural conditions. In this article, we find the necessary and sufficient conditions for a generalized Newtonian billiard to possess a smooth invariant measure, which is independent of the boundary action: the corresponding classical billiard should have an additional first integral of special type. In particular,the generalized Sinai billiards do not possess a smooth invariant measure. We then consider generalized billiards inside a ball, which is one of the main examples of the Newtonian generalized billiards which does have an invariant measure. We construct explicitly the invariant measure, and find the conditions for the Gibbs entropy growth for the corresponding relativistic billiard both formonotone and periodic action of the boundary.     

New mechanism of chaos in triangular billiards

A new mechanism of weak chaos in triangular billiards has been proposed owing to the effect of cutting of beams of rays. A similar mechanism is also implemented in other polygonal billiards. Cutting of beams results in the separation of initially close rays at a finite angle by jumps in the process of reflections of beams at the vertices of a billiard. The opposite effect of joining of beams of rays occurs in any triangular billiard along with cutting. It has been shown that the cutting of beams has an absolute character and is independent of the form of a triangular billiard or the parameters of a beam. On the contrary, joining has a relative character and depends on the commensurability of the angles of the triangle with π. Joining always suppresses cutting in triangular billiards whose angles are commensurable with π. For this reason, their dynamics cannot be chaotic. In triangular billiards whose angles are rationally incommensurable with π, cutting always dominates, leading to weak chaos. The revealed properties are confirmed by numerical experiments on the phase portraits of typical triangular billiards.     

Dynamic modeling and simulation of a real world billiard

Gravitational billiards provide an experimentally accessible arena for testing formulations of nonlinear dynamics. We present a mathematical model that captures the essential dynamics required for describing the motion of a realistic billiard for arbitrary boundaries. Simulations of the model are applied to parabolic, wedge and hyperbolic billiards that are driven sinusoidally. Direct comparisons are made between the model?s predictions and previously published experimental data. It is shown that the data can be successfully modeled with a simple set of parameters without an assumption of exotic energy dependence.     

Billiards with a given number of (k,n)-orbits

We consider billiard dynamics inside a smooth strictly convex curve. For each pair of integers (k,n), we focus our attention on the billiard trajectory that traces a closed polygon with n sides and makes k turns inside the billiard table, called a (k,n)-orbit. Birkhoff proved that a strictly convex billiard always has at least two (k,n)-orbits for any relatively prime integers k and n such that 1≤k相似文献   

On Generalized Relativistic Billiards in External Force Fields

In this Letter, we study generalized relativistic billiards: as a particle reflects from the boundary of the domain, its velocity is transformed as if the particle underwent an elastic collision with a moving wall, considered within the framework of the special theory of relativity. Inside the domain, the particle moves under the influence of some gravitational and nongravitational force fields.We study both periodic and 'monotone' action of the boundary. We prove that under some general conditions the invariant manifold in the velocity phase space of the generalized billiard, where the point velocity equals the velocity of light, is an exponential attractor, and for an open set of initial conditions the particle energy tends to infinity.     

Universality of level spacing distributions in classical chaos

We suggest that random matrix theory applied to a matrix of lengths of classical trajectories can be used in classical billiards to distinguish chaotic from non-chaotic behavior. We consider in 2D the integrable circular and rectangular billiard, the chaotic cardioid, Sinai and stadium billiard as well as mixed billiards from the Limaçon/Robnik family. From the spectrum of the length matrix we compute the level spacing distribution, the spectral auto-correlation and spectral rigidity. We observe non-generic (Dirac comb) behavior in the integrable case and Wignerian behavior in the chaotic case. For the Robnik billiard close to the circle the distribution approaches a Poissonian distribution. The length matrix elements of chaotic billiards display approximate GOE behavior. Our findings provide evidence for universality of level fluctuations—known from quantum chaos—to hold also in classical physics.     

A peculiar Maxwell’s Demon observed in a time-dependent stadium-like billiard

The dynamics of a driven stadium-like billiard is considered using the formalism of discrete mappings. The model presents a resonant velocity that depends on the rotation number around fixed points and external boundary perturbation which plays an important separation rule in the model. We show that particles exhibiting Fermi acceleration (initial velocity is above the resonant one) are scaling invariant with respect to the initial velocity and external perturbation. However, initial velocities below the resonant one lead the particles to decelerate therefore unlimited energy growth is not observed. This phenomenon may be interpreted as a specific Maxwell’s Demon which may separate fast and slow billiard particles.     

Synchronization Properties of Random Piecewise Isometries

Defocusing mechanism provides a way to construct chaotic (hyperbolic) billiards with focusing components by separating all regular components of the boundary of a billiard table sufficiently far away from each focusing component. If all focusing components of the boundary of the billiard table are circular arcs, then the above separation requirement reduces to that all circles obtained by completion of focusing components are contained in the billiard table. In the present paper we demonstrate that a class of convex tables—asymmetric lemons, whose boundary consists of two circular arcs, generate hyperbolic billiards. This result is quite surprising because the focusing components of the asymmetric lemon table are extremely close to each other, and because these tables are perturbations of the first convex ergodic billiard constructed more than 40 years ago.     

Scars in nonintegrable and rational billiards

We numerically study quantum mechanical features of the Bunimovich stadium billiard and the rational billiards which approach the former as the number of their sides increases. The statistics of energy levels and eigenfunctions of the rational billiards becomes indistinguishable from that of the Bunimovich stadium billiard below a certain energy. This fact contradicts the classical picture in which the Bunimovich stadium billiard is chaotic, but the rational billiard is pseudointegrable. It is numerically confirmed that the wave functions do not detect the fine structure, which is much smaller than the wavelength.     

Hyperbolic Magnetic Billiards on Surfaces¶of Constant Curvature

We consider classical billiards on surfaces of constant curvature, where the charged billiard ball is exposed to a homogeneous, stationary magnetic field perpendicular to the surface. We establish sufficient conditions for hyperbolicity of the billiard dynamics, and give a lower estimation for the Lyapunov exponent. This extends our recent results for non-magnetic billiards on surfaces of constant curvature. Using these conditions, we construct large classes of magnetic billiard tables with positive Lyapunov exponents on the plane, on the sphere and on the hyperbolic plane. Received: 7 April 2000 / Accepted: 19 September 2000     

Optical billiards for atoms

One of the central paradigms for classical and quantum chaos in conservative systems is the two-dimensional billiard in which particles are confined to a closed region in the plane, undergoing elastic collisions with the walls and free motion in between. We report the first realization of billiards using ultracold atoms bouncing off beams of light. These beams create the desired spatial pattern, forming an "optical billiard." We find excellent agreement between theory and our experimental demonstration of chaotic and stable motion in optical billiards, establishing a new testing ground for classical and quantum chaos.     

Proximity-induced subgaps in andreev billiards

We examine the density of states of an Andreev billiard and show that any billiard with a finite upper cutoff in the path length distribution P(s) will possess an energy gap on the scale of the Thouless energy. An exact quantum mechanical calculation for different Andreev billiards gives good agreement with the semiclassical predictions when the energy dependent phase shift for Andreev reflections is properly taken into account. Based on this new semiclassical Bohr-Sommerfeld approximation of the density of states, we derive a simple formula for the energy gap. We show that the energy gap, in units of Thouless energy, may exceed the value predicted earlier from random matrix theory for chaotic billiards.     

The influence of confining wall profile on quantum interference effects in etched Ga0.25In0.75As/InP billiards

We present measurements of the potential profile of etched GaInAs/InP billiards and show that their energy gradients are an order of magnitude steeper than those of surface-gated GaAs/AlGaAs billiards. Previously observed in GaAs/AlGaAs billiards, fractal conductance fluctuations are predicted to be critically sensitive to the billiard profile. Here we show that, despite the increase in energy gradient, the fractal conductance fluctuations persist in the harder GaInAs/InP billiards.     

Using integrability to produce chaos: Billiards with positive entropy

A new open class of convex 2 dimensional planar billiards with positive Lyapunov exponent almost everywhere is constructed. We introduce the notion of a focusing arc and show that such arcs can be used to build billiard systems with positive Lyapunov exponents. We prove that under smallC ⁶ perturbations, focusing arcs remain focusing and thereby show that perturbations of the Bunimovich stadium billiard have positive Lyapunov exponents.Partially supported by NSF grant DMS 8806067     

A Note on the Finite-Dimensional Distributions of Dispersing Billiard Processes

In this short note we consider the finite-dimensional distributions of sets of states generated by dispersing billiards with a random initial condition. We establish a functional correlation bound on the distance between the finite-dimensional distributions and corresponding product distributions. We demonstrate the usefulness of the bound by showing that it implies several limit theorems. The purpose of this note is to provide a tool facilitating the study of more general functionals of the billiard process.     

Hyperbolic Billiards on Surfaces of Constant Curvature

We establish sufficient conditions for the hyperbolicity of the billiard dynamics on surfaces of constant curvature. This extends known results for planar billiards. Using these conditions, we construct large classes of billiard tables with positive Lyapunov exponents on the sphere and on the hyperbolic plane. Received: 26 January 1999 / Accepted: 17 May 1999     

Semiclassical theory of integrable and rough Andreev billiards

We study the effect on the density of states in mesoscopic ballistic billiards to which a superconducting lead is attached. The expression for the density of states is derived in the semiclassical S-matrix formalism shedding light onto the origin of the differences between the semiclassical theory and the corresponding result derived from random matrix models. Applications to a square billiard geometry and billiards with boundary roughness are discussed. The saturation of the quasiparticle excitation spectrum is related to the classical dynamics of the billiard. The influence of weak magnetic fields on the proximity effect in rough Andreev billiards is discussed and an analytical formula is derived. The semiclassical theory provides an interpretation for the suppression of the proximity effect in the presence of magnetic fields as a coherence effect of time reversed trajectories. It is shown to be in good agreement with quantum mechanical calculations. Received 21 August 1999 and Received in final form 21 March 2001