Diffusion and chaos in a bouncing ball model (Q2175348)

The author gives a sufficient condition on the periodic motion \(f\) of a vertically moving racket for the diffusion and chaos of the motion of free-falling ball experiencing elastic bounces on the racket. For the cylinder \({\mathbb A} = {\mathbb T}\times {\mathbb R}\), there exists an exact symplectic twist map \(\Psi:{\mathbb A}\to{\mathbb A}\) (called the Tennis Map) that tracks the free-falling ball from one elastic bounce to the next. A sequence \((t_n,v_n)_{n\in{\mathbb N}}\) in \({\mathbb A}\) with \(v_n\geq 0\) describes a motion of the bouncing ball. The main result is that if \(f\) is \(C^3({\mathbb T})\) and satisfies \[ m < - \frac{g}{1 + \sqrt{1 + \frac{g}{M}}}, \] where \(g\) is constant associated to the gravitational force, \(m = \min\ddot f\), and \(M = \max \ddot f\), then: (a) (diffusion) for every \(A>0\) there exists a bouncing motion \((t_n,v_n)_{n\in{\mathbb N}}\) such that \[ \sup_{n\in{\mathbb N}} v_n - \inf_{n\in{\mathbb N}} v_n > A, \] (b) (chaos) there exists many compact \(\Psi\)-invariant subsets of \({\mathbb A}\) on which \(\Psi\) has positive entropy. The proof of (a) makes use of a theorem of Birkhoff about the existence of diffusive orbits and related to the destruction of rotational invariant curves. The proof of (b) refers to a result of \textit{G. Forni} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 16, No. 1, 51--86 (1996; Zbl 0856.58024)] on the existence of invariant measures with positive entropy being supported in the gaps of the Aubry-Mather sets.