The characteristic exponents of the falling ball model (Q679383): Difference between revisions

This paper considers a model created by Wojtkowski and proves a slightly weakened version of Woijtkowski's conjecture about this model. The model consists of the Hamiltonian system of \(n\geq 2\) point masses \(m_1,m_2,\dots,m_n\) with positions \(0\leq g_1\leq g_2\leq \dots\leq g_n\) freely falling in the vertical half line \(g\geq 0\) under constant gravitational acceleration, and colliding with the solid floor \(g=0\) and with each other elastically. If \(m_1\geq m_2\geq \cdots \geq m_n>0\) and \(m_1\neq m_n\), then Wojtkowski's conjecture is that all but one of the Lyapunov exponents of the flow of this Hamiltonian system are nonzero. The author's result is slightly weaker: If \(m_1>m_2\geq \dots\geq m_n>0\), then almost everywhere in phase space (with respect to the Liouville measure), all but one of the Lyapunov exponents of the Hamiltonian flow are nonzero.