Passive Scalars and Three-Dimensional Liouvillian Maps

Global aspects of the motion of passive scalars in time-dependent incompressible fluid flows are well described by volume-preserving (Liouvillian) three-dimensional maps. In this paper the possible invariant structures in Liouvillian maps and the two most interesting nearly-integrable cases are investigated. In addition, the fundamental role of invariant lines in organizing the dynamics of this type of system is exposed. Bifurcations involving the destruction of some invariant lines and tubes and the creation of new ones are described in detail.Comment: 18 pages, plain TeX, appears in Physica D, 76, 22-33, 1994. (Lack of figures in original submission corrected in this new upload.

A geometric mechanism of diffusion: Rigorous verification in a priori unstable Hamiltonian systems

In this paper we consider a representative a priori unstable Hamiltonian system with 2+1/2 degrees of freedom, to which we apply the geometric mechanism for diffusion introduced in the paper Delshams et al., Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 2006, and generalized in Delshams and Huguet, Nonlinearity 2009, and provide explicit, concrete and easily verifiable conditions for the existence of diffusing orbits. The simplification of the hypotheses allows us to perform explicitly the computations along the proof, which contribute to present in an easily understandable way the geometric mechanism of diffusion. In particular, we fully describe the construction of the scattering map and the combination of two types of dynamics on a normally hyperbolic invariant manifol

Resonances and Twist in Volume-Preserving Mappings

The phase space of an integrable, volume-preserving map with one action and $d$ angles is foliated by a one-parameter family of $d$-dimensional invariant tori. Perturbations of such a system may lead to chaotic dynamics and transport. We show that near a rank-one, resonant torus these mappings can be reduced to volume-preserving "standard maps." These have twist only when the image of the frequency map crosses the resonance curve transversely. We show that these maps can be approximated---using averaging theory---by the usual area-preserving twist or nontwist standard maps. The twist condition appropriate for the volume-preserving setting is shown to be distinct from the nondegeneracy condition used in (volume-preserving) KAM theory.Comment: Many typos fixed and notation simplified. New $n^{th}$ order averaging theorem and volume-preserving variant. Numerical comparison with averaging adde

Classical Mechanics

An overview of the foundations of Classical Mechanic

KdV equation under periodic boundary conditions and its perturbations

In this paper we discuss properties of the KdV equation under periodic boundary conditions, especially those which are important to study perturbations of the equation. Next we review what is known now about long-time behaviour of solutions for perturbed KdV equations

Contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics

This topical review focusses on the contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics bringing new methods which are or can be used in other scientific domains. It starts with the development of the theory of Hamiltonian chaos, and then deals with order or quasi order, for instance adiabatic and soliton theories. It ends with a shorter account of dissipative and high dimensional Hamiltonian dynamics, and of quantum chaos. Most of these contributions are a spin-off of the research on thermonuclear fusion by magnetic confinement, which started in the fifties. Their presentation is both exhaustive and compact. [15 April 2016