arXiv subjects

Hong-Kun Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Hong-Kun Zhang.

31 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Fluctuation of the entropy production for the Lorentz gas under small external forces

In this paper we study the physical and statistical properties of the periodic Lorentz gas with finite horizon driven to a non-equilibrium steady state by the combination of non-conservative external forces and deterministic thermostats. A version of this model was introduced by Chernov, Eyink, Lebowitz, and Sinai and subsequently generalized by Chernov and the third author. Non-equilibrium steady states for these models are SRB measures and they are characterized by the positivity of the steady state entropy production rate. Our main result is to establish that the entropy production, in this context equal to the phase space contraction, satisfies the Gallavotti-Cohen fluctuation relation. The main tool needed in the proof is the family of anisotropic Banach spaces introduced by the first and third authors to study the ergodic and statistical properties of billiards using transfer operator techniques.

math.DS↗

arXiv2017

Supperdiffusions for certain nonuniformly hyperbolic systems

We investigate superdiffusion for stochastic processes generated by nonuniformly hyperbolic system models, in terms of the convergence of rescaled distributions to the normal distribution following the abnormal central limit theorem, which differs from the usual requirement that the mean square displacement grow asymptotically linearly in time. We construct a martingale approximation that follows the idea of Doob's decomposition theorem. We obtain an explicity formula for the superdiffusion constant in terms of the fine structure that originates in the phase transitions as well as the geometry of the configuration domains of the systems. Models that satisfy our main assumptions include chaotic Lorentz gas, Bunimovich stadia, billiards with cusps, and can be apply to other nonuniformly hyperbolic systems with slow correlation decay rates of order $\cO(1/n)$.

math.DS↗

arXiv2017

Compound Poisson law for hitting times to periodic orbits in two-dimensional hyperbolic systems

We show that a compound Poisson distribution holds for scaled exceedances of observables $ϕ$ uniquely maximized at a periodic point $ζ$ in a variety of two-dimensional hyperbolic dynamical systems with singularities $(M,T,μ)$, including the billiard maps of Sinai dispersing billiards in both the finite and infinite horizon case. The observable we consider is of form $ϕ(z)=-\ln d(z,ζ)$ where $d$ is a metric defined in terms of the stable and unstable foliation. The compound Poisson process we obtain is a Pólya-Aeppli distibution of index $θ$. We calculate $θ$ in terms of the derivative of the map $T$. Furthermore if we define $M_n=\max\{ϕ,\ldots,ϕ\circ T^n\}$ and $u_n (τ)$ by $\lim_{n\to \infty} nμ(ϕ>u_n (τ) )=τ$ the maximal process satisfies an extreme value law of form $μ(M_n \le u_n)=e^{-θτ}$. These results generalize to a broader class of functions maximized at $ζ$, though the formulas regarding the parameters in the distribution need to be modified.

math.DS↗

arXiv2017

Ergodicity in umbrella billiards

We investigate a three-parameter family of billiard tables with circular arc boundaries. These umbrella-shaped billiards may be viewed as a generalization of two-parameter moon and asymmetric lemon billiards, in which the latter classes comprise instances where the new parameter is $0$. Like those two previously studied classes, for certain parameters umbrella billiards exhibit evidence of chaotic behavior despite failing to meet certain criteria for defocusing or dispersing, the two most well understood mechanisms for generating ergodicity and hyperbolicity. For some parameters corresponding to non-ergodic lemon and moon billiards, small increases in the new parameter transform elliptic $2$-periodic points into a cascade of higher order elliptic points. These may either stabilize or dissipate as the new parameter is increased. We characterize the periodic points and present evidence of new ergodic examples.

math.DS↗

arXiv2016

Stability of periodic orbits in no-slip billiards

Rigid bodies collision maps in dimension two, under a natural set of physical requirements, can be classified into two types: the standard specular reflection map and a second which we call, after Broomhead and Gutkin, no-slip. This leads to the study of no-slip billiards--planar billiard systems in which the moving particle is a disc (with rotationally symmetric mass distribution) whose translational and rotational velocities can both change at each collision with the boundary of the billiard domain. In this paper we greatly extend previous results on boundedness of orbits (Broomhead and Gutkin) and linear stability of periodic orbits for a Sinai-type billiard (Wojtkowski) for no-slip billiards. We show among other facts that: (i) for billiard domains in the plane having piecewise smooth boundary and at least one corner of inner angle less than $π$, no-slip billiard dynamics will always contain elliptic period-$2$ orbits; (ii) polygonal no-slip billiards always admit small invariant open sets and thus cannot be ergodic with respect to the canonical invariant billiard measure; (iii) the no-slip version of a Sinai billiard must contain linearly stable periodic orbits of period $2$ and, more generally, we provide a curvature threshold at which a commonly occurring period-$2$ orbit shifts from being hyperbolic to being elliptic; (iv) finally, we make a number of observations concerning periodic orbits in a class of polygonal billiards.

math.DS↗

arXiv2016

Decay of correlations for billiards with flat points II: cusps effect

In this paper we continue to study billiards with flat points, by constructing a spec family of dispersing billiards with cusps. All boundaries of the table have positive curvature except that the curvature vanishes at the vertex of a cusp, i.e. there is a pair of boundaries intersection at the flat point tangentially. We study the mixing rates of this one-parameter family of billiards with parameter $β\in (2,\infty)$, and show that the correlation functions of the collision map decay polynomially with order $\cO(n^{-\frac{1}{β-1}})$ as $n\to\infty$. In particular, this solves an open question raised by Chernov and Markarian \cite{CM05}.

math.DS↗

arXiv2016

Decay of correlations for billiards with flat points I: channel effect

In this paper we constructed a special family of semidispersing billiards bounded on a rectangle with a few dispersing scatters. We assume there exists a pair of flat points (with zero curvature) on the boundary of these scatters, whose tangent lines form a channel in the billiard table that is perpendicular to the vertical sides of the rectangle. The billiard can be induced to a Lorenz gas with infinite horizon when replacing the rectangle by a torus. We study the mixing rates of the one-parameter family of the semi-dispersing billiards and the Lorenz gas on a torus; and show that the correlation functions of both maps decay polynomially.

math.DS↗

arXiv2015

On another edge of defocusing: hyperbolicity of asymmetric lemon billiards

Defocusing mechanism provides a way to construct chaotic (hyperbolic) billiards with focusing components by separating all regular components of the boundary of a billiard table sufficiently far away from each focusing component. If all focusing components of the boundary of the billiard table are circular arcs, then the above separation requirement reduces to that all circles obtained by completion of focusing components are contained in the billiard table. In the present paper we demonstrate that a class of convex tables--asymmetric lemons, whose boundary consists of two circular arcs, generate hyperbolic billiards. This result is quite surprising because the focusing components of the asymmetric lemon table are extremely close to each other, and because these tables are perturbations of the first convex ergodic billiard constructed more than forty years ago.

math.DS↗

arXiv2013

Electrical current in Sinai billiards under general small forces

The Lorentz gas of $\mathbb{Z}^2$-periodic scatterers (or the so called Sinai billiards) can be used to model motion of electrons on an ionized medal. We investigate the linear response for the system under various external forces (during both the flight and the collision). We give some characterizations under which the forced system is time-reversible, and derive an estimate of the electrical current generated by the forced system. Moreover, applying Pesin entropy formula and Young dimension formula, we get several characterizations of the non-equilibrium steady state of the forced system.

math.DS↗

arXiv2013

Diffusivity in multiple scattering systems

We consider random flights of point particles inside $n$-dimensional channels of the form $\mathbb{R}^{k} \times \mathbb{B}^{n-k}$, where $\mathbb{B}^{n-k}$ is a ball of radius $r$ in dimension $n-k$. The particle velocities immediately after each collision with the boundary of the channel comprise a Markov chain with a transition probabilities operator $P$ that is determined by a choice of (billiard-like) random mechanical model of the particle-surface interaction at the "microscopic" scale. Our central concern is the relationship between the scattering properties encoded in $P$ and the constant of diffusivity of a Brownian motion obtained by an appropriate limit of the random flight in the channel. Markov operators obtained in this way are {\em natural} (definition below), which means, in particular, that (1) the (at the surface) Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution with a given surface temperature, when the surface model contains moving parts, or (2) the so-called Knudsen cosine law, when this model is purely geometric, is the stationary distribution of $P$. We show by a suitable generalization of a central limit theorem of Kipnis and Varadhan how the diffusivity is expressed in terms of the spectrum of $P$ and compute, in the case of 2-dimensional channels, the exact values of the diffusivity for a class of parametric microscopic surface models of the above geometric type (2).

math.PR↗

arXiv2012

Multiple scattering in random mechanical systems and diffusion approximation

This paper is concerned with stochastic processes that model multiple (or iterated) scattering in classical mechanical systems of billiard type, defined below. From a given (deterministic) system of billiard type, a random process with transition probabilities operator P is introduced by assuming that some of the dynamical variables are random with prescribed probability distributions. Of particular interest are systems with weak scattering, which are associated to parametric families of operators P_h, depending on a geometric or mechanical parameter h, that approaches the identity as h goes to 0. It is shown that (P_h -I)/h converges for small h to a second order elliptic differential operator L on compactly supported functions and that the Markov chain process associated to P_h converges to a diffusion with infinitesimal generator L. Both P_h and L are selfadjoint (densely) defined on the space L2(H,η) of square-integrable functions over the (lower) half-space H in R^m, where η is a stationary measure. This measure's density is either (post-collision) Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution or Knudsen cosine law, and the random processes with infinitesimal generator L respectively correspond to what we call MB diffusion and (generalized) Legendre diffusion. Concrete examples of simple mechanical systems are given and illustrated by numerically simulating the random processes.

math-ph↗

arXiv2004

A family of chaotic billiards with variable mixing rates

We describe a one-parameter family of dispersing (hence hyperbolic, ergodic and mixing) billiards where the correlation function of the collision map decays as $1/n^a$ (here $n$ denotes the discrete time), in which the degree $a \in (1, \infty)$ changes continuously with the parameter of the family, $β$. We also derive an explicit relation between the degree $a$ and the family parameter $β$.

math-ph↗

arXiv2004

Billiards with polynomial mixing rates

While many dynamical systems of mechanical origin, in particular billiards, are strongly chaotic -- enjoy exponential mixing, the rates of mixing in many other models are slow (algebraic, or polynomial). The dynamics in the latter are intermittent between regular and chaotic, which makes them particularly interesting in physical studies. However, mathematical methods for the analysis of systems with slow mixing rates were developed just recently and are still difficult to apply to realistic models. Here we reduce those methods to a practical scheme that allows us to obtain a nearly optimal bound on mixing rates. We demonstrate how the method works by applying it to several classes of chaotic billiards with slow mixing as well as discuss a few examples where the method, in its present form, fails.

math-ph↗