Lyapunov modes in hard-disk systems (Q2487797)

Simulations of a two-dimensional gas of hard discs in a rectangular container are studied. This concentrates on the Lyapunov spectrum near the vanishing Lyapunov exponents. Eigenmodes are associated to this spectrum which are called Lyapunov modes. A careful analysis is reported of these modes. It is shown that they can be naturally associated with vector fields over the container. It is shown further, that the Lyapunov exponents and the coupled dynamics of the modes (where it exists) follows linear laws. The coefficients of these laws depend only on the density of the gas but not on the aspect ratio (and very little on the boundary conditions). -- The picture described here is mainly geometric and general, permitting perhaps an easy extension to other systems (three-dimensional hard disk, and a comparatively rich variety of two-dimensional soft-particle systems). The here introduced analysis of Lyapunov modes may be important in other directions, too.