On the linear chain with arbitrary masses and force constants. II. Ergodic properties

The ergodic properties of linear and quadratic phase functions of the classical linear chain are studied for the uniform statistical distributions on the energy surface and in the manifold belonging to fixed values of the energy and the total momentum. This is done for the finite chain by using the time dependent correlation functions studied in a previous paper¹). The thermodynamic limit is also discussed. As an example, sufficient conditions on the masses and force constants are given to ensure that the kinetic energy of a certain particle remains nonergodic in the thermodynamic limit, the conditions defining a non-exceptional set of chains.