Abrupt bifurcations in chaotic scattering : view from the anti-integrable limit

Bleher, Ott and Grebogi found numerically an interesting chaotic phenomenon in 1989 for the scattering of a particle in a plane from a potential field with several peaks of equal height. They claimed that when the energy E of the particle is slightly less than the peak height Ec there is a hyperbolic suspension of a topological Markov chain from which chaotic scattering occurs, whereas for E > Ec there are no bounded orbits. They called the bifurcation at E = Ec an abrupt bifurcation to chaotic scattering. The aim of this paper is to establish a rigorous mathematical explanation for how chaotic orbits occur via the bifurcation, from the viewpoint of the anti-integrable limit, and to do so for a general range of chaotic scattering problems

Invariant manifolds and equilibrium states for non-uniformly hyperbolic horseshoes

In this paper we consider horseshoes containing an orbit of homoclinic tangency accumulated by periodic points. We prove a version of the Invariant Manifolds Theorem, construct finite Markov partitions and use them to prove the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states associated to H\"older continuous potentials.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figure

Meanders: Exact Asymptotics

We conjecture that meanders are governed by the gravitational version of a c=-4 two-dimensional conformal field theory, allowing for exact predictions for the meander configuration exponent \alpha=\sqrt{29}(\sqrt{29}+\sqrt{5})/12, and the semi-meander exponent {\bar\alpha}=1+\sqrt{11}(\sqrt{29}+\sqrt{5})/24. This result follows from an interpretation of meanders as pairs of fully packed loops on a random surface, described by two c=-2 free fields. The above values agree with recent numerical estimates. We generalize these results to a score of meandric numbers with various geometries and arbitrary loop fugacities.Comment: new version with note added in proo

Lee-Yang-Fisher zeros for DHL and 2D rational dynamics, II. Global Pluripotential Interpretation

In a classical work of the 1950's, Lee and Yang proved that for fixed nonnegative temperature, the zeros of the partition functions of a ferromagnetic Ising model always lie on the unit circle in the complex magnetic field. Zeros of the partition function in the complex temperature were then considered by Fisher, when the magnetic field is set to zero. Limiting distributions of Lee-Yang and of Fisher zeros are physically important as they control phase transitions in the model. One can also consider the zeros of the partition function simultaneously in both complex magnetic field and complex temperature. They form an algebraic curve called the Lee-Yang-Fisher (LYF) zeros. In this paper we continue studying their limiting distribution for the Diamond Hierarchical Lattice (DHL). In this case, it can be described in terms of the dynamics of an explicit rational function R in two variables (the Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization transformation). We study properties of the Fatou and Julia sets of this transformation and then we prove that the Lee-Yang-Fisher zeros are equidistributed with respect to a dynamical (1,1)-current in the projective space. The free energy of the lattice gets interpreted as the pluripotential of this current. We also prove a more general equidistribution theorem which applies to rational mappings having indeterminate points, including the Migdal-Kadanoff renormalization transformation of various other hierarchical lattices.Comment: Continues arXiv:1009.4691. Final version. To appear in The Journal of Geometric Analysis. (This is a tiny update to correct an error in the Latex file from previous version.

Semiclassical approach to discrete symmetries in quantum chaos

We use semiclassical methods to evaluate the spectral two-point correlation function of quantum chaotic systems with discrete geometrical symmetries. The energy spectra of these systems can be divided into subspectra that are associated to irreducible representations of the corresponding symmetry group. We show that for (spinless) time reversal invariant systems the statistics inside these subspectra depend on the type of irreducible representation. For real representations the spectral statistics agree with those of the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE) of Random Matrix Theory (RMT), whereas complex representations correspond to the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE). For systems without time reversal invariance all subspectra show GUE statistics. There are no correlations between non-degenerate subspectra. Our techniques generalize recent developments in the semiclassical approach to quantum chaos allowing one to obtain full agreement with the two-point correlation function predicted by RMT, including oscillatory contributions.Comment: 26 pages, 8 Figure