Irregular scattering of particles confined to ring-bounded cavities

The classical motion of a free particle that scatters elastically from ring-bounded cavities is analyzed numerically. When the ring is a smooth circle the scattering follows a regular and periodic pattern. However, for rings composed ofN scatterers the flow is irregular, of Lyapunov type. The Lyapunov exponent is found to depend logarithmically withN, which is consistent with the theoretical derivation of Chernov for polygon-shaped billiard systems. The escape time from cavities bounded by a ring ofN separated scatterers is demonstrated to follow a geometric distribution as a function of the aperture size. An empirical scaling is proposed between the Lyapunov exponent, the escape time, andN.