Anomalous Diffusion in Infinite Horizon Billiards

Abstract

We consider the long time dependence for the moments of displacement < |r|^q > of infinite horizon billiards, given a bounded initial distribution of particles. For a variety of billiard models we find <|r|^q> ~ t^g(q) (up to factors of log t). The time exponent, g(q), is piecewise linear and equal to q/2 for q<2 and q-1 for q>2. We discuss the lack of dependence of this result on the initial distribution of particles and resolve apparent discrepancies between this time dependence and a prior result. The lack of dependence on initial distribution follows from a remarkable scaling result that we obtain for the time evolution of the distribution function of the angle of a particle's velocity vector.