Three unequal masses on a ring and soft triangular billiards

Introduction to Focus Issue: statistical mechanics and billiard-type dynamical systems

Dynamical systems of the billiard type are of fundamental importance for the description of numerous phenomena observed in many different fields of research, including statistical mechanics, Hamiltonian dynamics, nonlinear physics, and many others. This Focus Issue presents the recent progress in this area with contributions from the mathematical as well as physical stand point.

Chaotic and Arnold stripes in weakly chaotic Hamiltonian systems

The dynamics in weakly chaotic Hamiltonian systems strongly depends on initial conditions (ICs) and little can be affirmed about generic behaviors. Using two distinct Hamiltonian systems, namely one particle in an open rectangular billiard and four particles globally coupled on a discrete lattice, we show that in these models, the transition from integrable motion to weak chaos emerges via chaotic stripes as the nonlinear parameter is increased. The stripes represent intervals of initial conditions which generate chaotic trajectories and increase with the nonlinear parameter of the system. In the billiard case, the initial conditions are the injection angles. For higher-dimensional systems and small nonlinearities, the chaotic stripes are the initial condition inside which Arnold diffusion occurs.