A geometric proof of separatrix crossing results. (Q1428429)

The authors consider a family of one degree of freedom Hamiltonian systems as follows: \[ q'=H_p(q, p; \lambda),\quad p'=-H_q(q, p; \lambda), \quad \lambda'=\varepsilon, \] where \(\varepsilon>0\) is a small parameter, \(\lambda\in [0, 1]\) is a parameter, \(H(p, q; \lambda)\) is the Hamiltonian function such that for each \(\lambda\) the unperturbed system (that is \(\varepsilon=0\)) possesses a hyperbolic equilibrium and an associated separatrix cycle which depends on \(\lambda\). By using relative simple, geometric arguments, the authors study the adiabatic invariance of the action variable of the system when the trajectories cross a separatrix and give a geometric proof of separatrix crossing results.