An averaging theorem for Hamiltonian dynamical systems in the thermodynamic limit (Q2454866)

The objective of the work is to develop a general perturbation theory for weakly nonintegrable dynamical systems with a large number of degrees of freedom from the viewpoint of statistical mechanics (in the present case, the formulation is based on concepts borrowed from the information theory). A general intention is to give up the study of particular dynamical trajectories, and instead focus on ergodic properties of the system. An emphasis is made on the necessity to use a relatively weak norm of the \(L^2\) type, rather than the more standard ``sup'' norm. The model which is used in the work is a period chain of \(2N\) coupled rotators, based on the following Hamiltonian: \[ H = \sum_{j=-N}^{j=+N}(1/2)p_j^2 -\varepsilon \sum_{j=-N}^{j=+N}\cos(q_{j+1}-q_j). \] The mixing in the phase space of the system is studied with respect to the Gibbs' invariant measure, defined by \[ d\mu = Z^{-1}\exp(-\beta H)\,dx,\quad Z \equiv \int\exp(-H)\,d{\mathbf x}, \] where \(\beta\) is the inverse temperature, and vectorial variable \({\mathbf x}\) represents the set of coordinates \(q_j\) and conjugate momenta \(p_j\). The perturbation theory is developed in three steps, aiming at formal search for dynamical invariants. The main qualitative result is that the actual rate of the nonintegrability-induced mixing in the phase space of \({\mathbf x}\) is much smaller than it is formally predicted by direct analysis of the equations of motion. A strategic objective of the work is to develop a statistical analysis for systems with many degrees of freedom that would be a relevant counterpart of the Nekhoroshev's theorem that estimates the exponentially large rate of mixing (destruction of the non-surviving invariant tori) in Hamiltonian systems with few degrees of freedom (\(N\)), \(T\sim\exp((C/\varepsilon)^{1/N})\).