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Charalampos Skokos

Publications and source records attributed to Charalampos Skokos.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Regularity and reentry basins of low Earth orbits in the $J_{2}$-solar radiation pressure problem

We numerically investigate the long-term dynamical structure of low Earth orbits (LEOs) using the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI), a fast numerical indicator of chaos, within a closed-form averaged model that incorporates the effects of solar radiation pressure and Earth's oblateness. Our analysis reveals that the area-to-mass ratio is a key parameter governing the onset and extent of chaotic behavior in LEOs. We map the system's chaotic regions, study the behavior of reentry trajectories and characterize their temporal laws over a timescale constrained by the $25$-year mitigation guideline. Within this physically relevant timescale, we show that most of the reentry trajectories exhibit regular motion. Reentry basins, constructed according to different mitigation guidelines up to $25$ years, display fractal-like structures for less-stringent guidelines. The degree of this fractality is quantitatively assessed using the uncertainty exponent method. In most cases, for large area-to-mass ratios, reentry occurs on relatively short timescales (a few years) - short enough that no fractal behavior is observed in the basin boundaries. This numerical dynamical study offers insights into the development of dynamically informed deorbiting strategies.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2026

ChaosNetBench: Benchmarking Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks on Chaotic Lattice Dynamics

Spatio-temporal graph neural networks (STGNNs) are widely used for short-term forecasting in dynamic physical systems such as traffic and weather. However, the prevailing evaluation practice uses real world benchmark data sets in a single domain with a single fixed holdout splits, making it difficult to compare architectures across different dynamical regimes. We introduce ChaosNetBench (CNB), a synthetic benchmark dataset and evaluation framework for studying STGNN performance under controlled multidimensional chaotic dynamics. CNB is built on a lattice of coupled standard maps with independently tunable local chaos ($K$), coupling strength ($\varepsilon$), and system size ($N$), providing known topology and known dynamics across 96 system instances and 9{,}600 trajectories. We introduce chaos indicators, evaluation metrics and a protocol to analyze and compare the capacity of STGNN architectures to deal with different levels of local and global chaos. We illustrate the usage of the framework by analyzing 13 architectures (5 STGNNs and 8 non-graph baselines). The results reveal a regime dependent transition in which non-graph baselines (TCN, N-BEATS, iTransformer) remain competitive when there is low local chaos, while STGNNs (e.g., Graph WaveNet, D2STGNN, STAEformer) are generally more resilient to higher levels of local and global chaos. CNB provides a practical, reusable testbed for systematically comparing and analyzing the capacity of STGNN architectures to handle different levels of local and global chaos.

cs.LG↗
arXiv2026

On the efficient numerical computation of covariant Lyapunov vectors

Covariant Lyapunov vectors (CLVs) are useful in multiple applications, but the optimal time windows needed to accurately compute these vectors are yet unclear. To remedy this, we investigate two methods for determining when to safely terminate the forward and backward transient phases of the CLV computation algorithm by Ginelli et al.~\cite{GinelliEtAl2007} when applied to chaotic orbits of conservative Hamiltonian systems. We perform this investigation for two prototypical Hamiltonian systems, namely the well-known Hénon-Heiles system of two degrees of freedom and a system of three nonlinearly coupled harmonic oscillators having three degrees of freedom, finding very similar results for the two methods and thus recommending the more efficient one. We find that the accuracy of two-dimensional center subspace computations is significantly reduced when the backward evolution stages of the algorithm are performed over long time intervals. We explain this observation by examining the tangent dynamics of the center subspace wherein CLVs tend to align/anti-align, and we propose an adaptation of the algorithm that improves the accuracy of such computations over long times by preventing this alignment/anti-alignment of CLVs in the center subspace.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2025

Energy transport and chaos in a one-dimensional disordered nonlinear stub lattice

We investigate energy propagation in a one-dimensional stub lattice in the presence of both disorder and nonlinearity. In the periodic case, the stub lattice hosts two dispersive bands separated by a flat band; however, we show that sufficiently strong disorder fills all intermediate band gaps. By mapping the two-dimensional parameter space of disorder and nonlinearity, we identify three distinct dynamical regimes (weak chaos, strong chaos, and self-trapping) through numerical simulations of initially localized wave packets. When disorder is strong enough to close the frequency gaps, the results closely resemble those obtained in the one-dimensional disordered discrete nonlinear Schrödinger equation and Klein-Gordon lattice model. In particular, subdiffusive spreading is observed in both the weak and strong chaos regimes, with the second moment $m_2$ of the norm distribution scaling as $m_2 \propto t^{0.33}$ and $m_2 \propto t^{0.5}$, respectively. The system's chaotic behavior follows a similar trend, with the finite-time maximum Lyapunov exponent $Λ$ decaying as $Λ\propto t^{-0.25}$ and $Λ\propto t^{-0.3}$. For moderate disorder strengths, i.e., near the point of gap closing, we find that the presence of small frequency gaps does not exert any noticeable influence on the spreading behavior. Our findings extend the characterization of nonlinear disordered lattices in both weak and strong chaos regimes to other network geometries, such as the stub lattice, which serves as a representative flat-band system.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2025

Temperature Dependent Mechanical and Structural Properties of Uniaxially Strained Planar Graphene

Using molecular dynamics simulations in a planar graphene sheet, we investigate the temperature dependence of its mechanical behavior under uniaxial tensile stress applied either along the armchair or the zigzag direction. Stress-strain curves are calculated for different temperatures and the corresponding dependence of various elastic parameters, is discussed. Fracture stress and strain, as well as the Young modulus, decrease almost linearly with temperature, in accordance with previous investigations. An almost linear variation of the third-order elastic modulus with temperature is demonstrated, revealing opposite trends for uniaxial loadings along the armchair or the zigzag direction. The detailed dependence of the distributions of bond lengths and bond angles both on strain and temperature is presented for the first time, along with approximate analytical expressions. The latter describe accurately the numerically obtained distributions.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2025

Manifold dynamics and orbital properties in a two-dimensional galactic model

We numerically investigate the orbital dynamics of a two-dimensional galactic model, emphasizing the influence of stable and unstable manifolds on the evolution of orbits. In our analysis we use evaluations of the system's Lagrangian descriptors to reveal the structure and location of manifolds. In addition, we perform extensive computations of the forward and backward in time evolution of ensembles of orbits, which allow us to study the future and past dynamics of the model by constructing its so-called origin-fate maps. Focusing on the properties of the escape of orbits from the central regions of the model's configuration space, we analyze various aspects of the orbits' evolutions, like the time an orbit needs to escape from the central region, the total time it spends at the exterior areas of the galaxy, as well as the number of its escapes and reentries from and to the central region. Furthermore, we follow the past and future evolution of orbits keeping track of the regions from which they leave the central parts of the galaxy, and relate different orbital behaviors with the enhancement of specific morphological features in the system's configuration space. Our results indicate that the stable (unstable) manifolds mainly influence the orbital characteristics of the model in the future (past).

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2025

On the behavior of the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI) method for dissipative systems

The behavior of the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI) method has been extensively studied and successfully applied for the detection of chaotic motion in conservative Hamiltonian systems, yet its application to non-Hamiltonian dissipative systems remains relatively unexplored. In this work, we fill this gap by investigating the GALI's ability to identify stable fixed points, stable limit cycles, chaotic (strange) and hyperchaotic attractors in dissipative systems generated by both continuous and discrete time dynamics, and compare its performance to the analysis achieved by the computation of the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. Through a comprehensive study of three classical dissipative models, namely the 3D Lorenz system, a modified Lorenz 4D hyperchaotic system, and the 3D generalized hyperchaotic Hénon map, we examine GALI's behavior, and possible limitations, in detecting chaotic motion, as well as the presence of different types of attractors occurring in dissipative dynamical systems. We find that the GALI successfully detects chaotic motion, as well as stable fixed points, but it faces difficulties in distinctly discriminating between stable limit cycles, chaotic attractors, and hyperchaotic motion.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2025

Using Lagrangian descriptors to reveal the phase space structure of dynamical systems described by fractional differential equations: Application to the Duffing oscillator

We showcase the utility of the Lagrangian descriptors method in qualitatively understanding the underlying dynamical behavior of dynamical systems governed by fractional-order differential equations. In particular, we use the Lagrangian descriptors method to study the phase space structure of the unforced and undamped Duffing oscillator when its time evolution is governed by fractional-order differential equations. In our study, we implement two types of fractional derivatives, namely the standard Grünwald-Letnikov method, which is a finite difference approximation of the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative, and a Grünwald-Letnikov method with a correction term that approximates the Caputo fractional derivative. While there is no issue with forward-time integrations needed for the evaluation of Lagrangian descriptors, we discuss in detail ways to perform the non-trivial task of backward-time integrations and implement two methods for this purpose: a `nonlocal implicit inverse' technique and a `time-reverse inverse' approach. We analyze the differences in the Lagrangian descriptors results due to the two backward-time integration approaches, discuss the physical significance of these differences, and eventually argue that the nonlocal implicit inverse implementation of the Grünwald-Letnikov fractional derivative manages to reveal the phase space structure of fractional-order dynamical systems correctly.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2025

Efficient detection of chaos through the computation of the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI) by the multi-particle method

We present a method for the computation of the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI), a fast and effective chaos indicator, using a multi-particle approach that avoids variational equations. We show that this approach is robust and accurate by deriving a leading-order error estimation for both the variational (VM) and the multi-particle (MPM) methods, which we validate by performing extensive numerical simulations on two prototypical models: the two degrees of freedom Hénon-Heiles system and the multidimensional $β$-Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou chain of oscillators. The dependence of the accuracy of the GALI on control parameters such as the renormalization time, the integration time step and the deviation vector size is studied in detail. We test the MPM implemented with double precision accuracy ($\varepsilon \approx 10^{-16}$) and find that it performs reliably for deviation vector sizes $d_0\approx \varepsilon^{1/2}$, renormalization times $τ\lesssim 1$, and relative energy errors $E_r \lesssim \varepsilon^{1/2}$. These results hold for systems with many degrees of freedom and demonstrate that the MPM is a robust and efficient method for studying the chaotic dynamics of Hamiltonian systems. Our work makes it possible to explore chaotic dynamics with the GALI in a vast number of systems by eliminating the need for variational equations.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2024

The evolution of the phase space structure along pitchfork and period-doubling bifurcations in a 3D galactic bar potential

We investigate how the phase space structure of a 3D autonomous Hamiltonian system evolves across a series of successive 2D and 3D pitchfork and period-doubling bifurcations, as the transition of the parent families of periodic orbits (POs) from stability to simple instability leads to the creation of new stable POs. Our research illustrates the consecutive alterations in the phase space structure near POs as the stability of the main family of POs changes. This process gives rise to new families of POs within the system, either maintaining the same or exhibiting higher multiplicity compared to their parent families. Tracking such a phase space transformation is challenging in a 3D system. By utilizing the color and rotation technique to visualize the 4D Poincar'e surfaces of section of the system, i.e. projecting them onto a 3D subspace and employing color to represent the fourth dimension, we can identify distinct structural patterns. Perturbations of parent and bifurcating stable POs result in the creation of tori characterized by a smooth color variation on their surface. Furthermore, perturbations of simple unstable parent POs beyond the bifurcation point which lead to the birth of new stable families of POs, result in the formation of figure-8 structures of smooth color variations. These figure-8 formations surround well-shaped tori around the bifurcated stable POs, losing their well-defined forms for energies further away from the bifurcation point. We also observe that even slight perturbations of highly unstable POs create a cloud of mixed color points, which rapidly move away from the location of the PO. Our study introduces, for the first time, a systematic visualization of 4D surfaces of section within the vicinity of higher multiplicity POs. It elucidates how, in these cases, the coexistence of regular and chaotic orbits contributes to shaping the phase space landscape.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2024

Kinetic versus Magnetic Chaos in Toroidal Plasmas: A systematic quantitative comparison

Magnetic field line chaos occurs under the presence of non-axisymmetric perturbations of an axisymmetric equilibrium and is manifested by the destruction of smooth flux surfaces formed by the field lines. These perturbations also render the particle motion, as described by the guiding center dynamics, non-integrable and, therefore, chaotic. However, the chaoticities of the magnetic field lines and the particle orbits significantly differ both in strength and radial location in a toroidal configuration, except for the case of very low-energy particles whose orbits closely follow the magnetic field lines. The chaoticity of more energetic particles, undergoing large drifts with respect to the magnetic field lines, crucially determines the confinement properties of a toroidal device but cannot be inferred from that of the underlying magnetic field. In this work, we implement the Smaller ALignment Index (SALI) method for detecting and quantifying chaos, allowing for a systematic comparison between magnetic and kinetic chaos. The efficient quantification of chaos enables the assignment of a value characterizing the chaoticity of each orbit in the space of the three constants of the motion, namely energy, magnetic moment and toroidal momentum. The respective diagrams provide a unique overview of the different effects of a specific set of perturbations on the entire range of trapped and passing particles, as well as the radial location of the chaotic regions, offering a valuable tool for the study of particle energy and momentum transport and confinement properties of a toroidal fusion device.

physics.plasm-ph↗
arXiv2023

Performance of chaos diagnostics based on Lagrangian descriptors. Application to the 4D standard map

We investigate the ability of simple diagnostics based on Lagrangian descriptor (LD) computations of initially nearby orbits to detect chaos in conservative dynamical systems with phase space dimensionality higher than two. In particular, we consider the recently introduced methods of the difference ($D_L^n$) and the ratio ($R_L^n$) of the LDs of neighboring orbits, as well as a quantity ($S_L^n$) related to the finite-difference second spatial derivative of the LDs, and use them to determine the chaotic or regular nature of ensembles of orbits of a prototypical area-preserving map model, the 4-dimensional (4D) symplectic standard map. Using the distributions of the indices' values we determine appropriate thresholds to discriminate between regular and chaotic orbits, and compare the obtained characterization against that achieved by the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) method of chaos detection, by recording the percentage agreement $P_A$ between the two classifications. We study the influence of various factors on the performance of these indices, and show that the increase of the final number of orbit iterations T and the order n of the indices (i.e. the dimensionality of the space where the considered nearby orbits lie), as well as the decrease of the distance $σ$ of neighboring orbits, increase the $P_A$ values along with the required computational effort. Balancing between these two factors we find appropriate T, n and $σ$ values, which allow the efficient use of the $D_L^n$, $R_L^n$ and $S_L^n$ indices as short time and computationally cheap chaos diagnostics achieving $P_A \gtrsim 90 \%$, with $D_L^n$ and $S_L^n$ having larger $P_A$ values than $R_L^n$. Our results show that the three LDs-based indices perform better for systems with large percentages of chaotic orbits.

astro-ph.EP↗
arXiv2023

Navigating Phase Space Transport with the Origin-Fate Map

We introduce and demonstrate the usage of the origin-fate map (OFM) as a tool for the detailed investigation of phase space transport in reactant-product type systems. For these systems, which exhibit clearly defined start and end states, it is possible to build a comprehensive picture of the lobe dynamics by considering backward and forward integration of sets of initial conditions to index their origin and fate. We illustrate the method and its utility in the study of a two degrees of freedom caldera potential with four exits, demonstrating that the OFM not only recapitulates results from classical manifold theory, but even provides more detailed information about complex lobe structures. The OFM allows the detection of dynamically significant transitions caused by the creation of new lobes, and is also able to guide the prediction of the position of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs). Further, we compute the OFM on the periodic orbit dividing surface (PODS) associated with the transition state of a caldera entrance, which allows for a powerful analysis of reactive trajectories. The intersection of the manifolds corresponding to this UPO with other manifolds in the phase space results in the appearance of lobes on the PODS, which are directly classified by the OFM. This allows computations of branching ratios and the exploration of a fractal cascade of lobes as the caldera is stretched, which results in fluctuations in the branching ratio and chaotic selectivity. The OFM is found to be a simple and very useful tool with a vast range of descriptive and quantitative applications.

math.DS↗
arXiv2023

Wave-packet spreading in the disordered and nonlinear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger chain

We numerically investigate the characteristics of the long-time dynamics of a single-site wave-packet excitation in a disordered and nonlinear Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. In the linear regime, as the parameters controlling the topology of the system are varied, we show that the transition between two different topological phases is preceded by an anomalous diffusion, in contrast to Anderson localization within these topological phases. In the presence of on-site nonlinearity this feature is lost due to mode-mode interactions. Direct numerical simulations reveal that the characteristics of the asymptotic nonlinear wave-packet spreading are the same across the whole studied parameter space. Our findings underline the importance of mode-mode interactions in nonlinear topological systems, which must be studied in order to define reliable nonlinear topological markers.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2022

Quantifying chaos using Lagrangian descriptors

We present and validate simple and efficient methods to estimate the chaoticity of orbits in low dimensional dynamical systems from computations of Lagrangian descriptors (LDs) on short time scales. Two quantities are proposed for determining the chaotic or regular nature of orbits in a system's phase space, which are based on the values of the LDs of these orbits and of nearby ones: The difference (DNLD) and ratio (RNLD) of neighboring orbits' LDs. We find that, typically, these indicators are able to correctly characterize the chaotic or regular nature of orbits to better than 90 % agreement with results obtained by implementing the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) method, which is a well established chaos detection technique. Further investigating the performance of the two introduced quantities we discuss the effects of the total integration time and of the spacing between the used neighboring orbits on the accuracy of the methods, finding that even typical short time, coarse grid LD computations are sufficient to provide a reliable quantification of a system's chaotic component, using less CPU time than the SALI. In addition to quantifying chaos, the introduced indicators have the ability to reveal details about the systems' local and global chaotic phase space structure. Our findings clearly suggest that LDs can also be used to quantify and investigate chaos in continuous and discrete low dimensional dynamical systems.

nlin.CD↗
arXiv2022

Bubble relaxation dynamics in homopolymer DNA sequences

Understanding the inherent timescales of large bubbles in DNA is critical to a thorough comprehension of its physicochemical characteristics, as well as their potential role on helix opening and biological function. In this work we employ the coarse-grained Peyrard-Bishop-Dauxois model of DNA to study relaxation dynamics of large bubbles in homopolymer DNA, using simulations up to the microsecond time scale. By studying energy autocorrelation functions of relatively large bubbles inserted into thermalised DNA molecules, we extract characteristic relaxation times from the equilibration process for both adenine-thymine (AT) and guanine-cytosine (GC) homopolymers. Bubbles of different amplitudes and widths are investigated through extensive statistics and appropriate fittings of their relaxation. Characteristic relaxation times increase with bubble height and width. We show that, within the model, relaxation times are two orders of magnitude longer in GC sequences than in AT sequences. Overall, our results confirm that large bubbles leave a lasting impact on the molecule's dynamics, for times between 0.4-200ns depending on the homopolymer type and bubble shape, thus clearly affecting long-time evolutions of the molecule.

physics.bio-ph↗
arXiv2022

Wave-packet spreading in disordered soft architected structures

We study the dynamical and chaotic behavior of a disordered one-dimensional elastic mechanical lattice which supports translational and rotational waves. The model used in this work is motivated by the recent experimental results of B. Deng et al., Nat. Commun. 9, 3410 (2018). This lattice is characterized by strong geometrical nonlinearities and the coupling of two degrees-of-freedom (DoFs) per site. Although the linear limit of the structure consists of a linear Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou lattice and a linear Klein-Gordon (KG) lattice whose DoFs are uncoupled, by using single site initial excitations on the rotational DoF, we evoke the nonlinear coupling between the system's translational and rotational DoFs. Our results reveal that such coupling induces rich wave-packet spreading behavior in the presence of strong disorder. In the weakly nonlinear regime, we observe energy spreading only due to the coupling of the two DoFs (per site) which is in contrast to what is known for KG lattices with a single DoF per lattice site, where the spreading occurs due to chaoticity. Additionally, for strong nonlinearities, we show that initially localized wave-packets attain near ballistic behavior in contrast to other known models. We also reveal persistent chaos during energy spreading, although its strength decreases in time as quantified by the evolution of the system's finite-time maximum Lyapunov exponent. Our results show that flexible, disordered and strongly nonlinear lattices are a viable platform to study energy transport in combination with multiple DoFs (per site), also present an alternative way to control energy spreading in heterogeneous media.

nlin.CD↗