Stability and instability results in a model of Fermi acceleration (Q1034168)

This is a paper on Fermi acceleration. The Fermi-Ulam ping-pong model consists of a particle bounching between two walls, moving back and forth. One wants to know whether there exists orbits of the particle with unbounded energy. Such orbits can be divided into two types, escaping and oscillating. The escaping orbits are those such that \(\liminf\) of the energy is infinite, and the oscillating orbits are those such that \(\liminf\) of the energy is finite, but \(\limsup\) of the energy is infinite. It has been proved [\textit{L. D. Pustyl'nikov}, Trans. Mosc. Math. Soc. 34, 1--101 (1978; Zbl 0412.58025); Russ. Math. Surv. 50, No.~1, 145--189 (1995; Zbl 0846.70005)] that all orbits have bounded energy if the motions of the walls are sufficiently smooth. Another model consists of one and only one moving wall, and a potential of the form \(U (x)= x^\alpha\), that brings the particle back to the wall. The author mentions some previously known results on this model. Not so much is known when \(\alpha < 1\), but it is conjectured that in this case, the set of escaping orbits have measure zero. In this paper the author considers an approximation of the above mentioned model: The wall is assumed to be at rest, but gives the particle momentum as if it was moving. The accuracy of this approximation, called the static wall approximation, grows as the energy of the particle grows. The main results of the paper are the following theorems. Theorem A. If \(\alpha < 1\) and the motion of the plate is a sinusoid, then the set of escaping orbits has full Hausdorff dimension. Theorem B. Let \(\alpha < 1\). Then, in the static wall approximation {\parindent=5mm \begin{itemize}\item[a)] for almost all sinusoidal motions there are elliptic islands of period \(2\) for arbitrary high energies. Moreover if \(2/3< \alpha< 1\) we can prove the same result for all sinusoidal motions; \item[b)] the total measure of such islands is infinite if \(\alpha\geq 6/7\) and finite if \(\alpha < 6/7\). \end{itemize}} The proof contains a study of the following question. Let \(C_1 > C_2 > 0\) and \(\xi > 0\). For which \(\gamma\) and \(a\) are there infinitely many \(n, m \in \mathbb{N}\) such that \[ \bigl( n^{1/\gamma}+ a\bigr)^\gamma \in \biggl(m+ \frac{C_1}{a} m^{-\xi},\;m+ \frac{C_2}{a} m^{-\xi} \biggr)? \] Let \(A\) be the set of \(a > 0\) such that this is satisfied for infinitely many \(n, m \in \mathbb{N}\). De Simoi proves that for \(\gamma > 1\), the set \(A\) is residual in \(\mathbb{R}^+\); if \(\xi > 1\), then \(A\) has zero measure; if \(\xi \leq 1\) then \(A\) has full measure; and if \(\xi \leq 1\) and \(\xi \gamma < 1\), then \(A = \mathbb{R}^+\).