arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Yves Elskens.
The one-dimensional motion of $N$ particles in the field of many incoherent waves is revisited numerically. When the wave complex amplitudes are independent, with a gaussian distribution, the quasilinear approximation is found to always overestimate transport and to become accurate in the limit of infinite resonance overlap.
We report the experimental observation of a "devil's staircase'' in a time dependent system considered as a paradigm for the transition to large scale chaos in the universality class of hamiltonian systems. A test electron beam is used to observe its non-self-consistent interaction with externally excited wave(s) in a Travelling Wave Tube (TWT). A trochoidal energy analyzer records the beam energy distribution at the output of the interaction line. An arbitrary waveform generator is used to launch a prescribed spectrum of waves along the slow wave structure (a 4 m long helix) of the TWT. The resonant velocity domain associated to a single wave is observed, as well as the transition to large scale chaos when the resonant domains of two waves and their secondary resonances overlap. This transition exhibits a "devil's staircase'' behavior for increasing excitation amplitude, due to the nonlinear forcing by the second wave on the pendulum-like motion of a charged particle in one electrostatic wave.
A reduced Hamiltonian formulation to reproduce the saturated regime of a single pass free electron laser, around perfect tuning, is here discussed. Asymptotically, $N\_m$ particles are found to organize in a dense cluster, that evolves as an individual massive unit. The remaining particles fill the surrounding uniform sea, spanning a finite portion of phase space, approximately delimited by the average momenta $ω\_+$ and $ω\_-$. These quantities enter the model as external parameters, which can be self-consistently determined within the proposed theoretical framework. To this aim, we make use of a statistical mechanics treatment of the Vlasov equation, that governs the initial amplification process. Simulations of the reduced dynamics are shown to successfully capture the oscillating regime observed within the original $N$-body picture.
In two recent publications [Commun. PDE, vol.22, p.307--335 (1997), Commun. Math. Phys., vol.203, p.1--19 (1999)], A. Komech, M. Kunze and H. Spohn studied the joint dynamics of a classical point particle and a wave type generalization of the Newtonian gravity potential, coupled in a regularized way. In the present paper the many-body dynamics of this model is studied. The Vlasov continuum limit is obtained in form equivalent to a weak law of large numbers. We also establish a central limit theorem for the fluctuations around this limit.
We describe a method of control of chaos that occurs in area-preserving maps. This method is based on small modifications of the original map by addition of a small control term. We apply this control technique to the standard map and to the tokamap.
The jump processes W(t) on [0,\infty[ with transitions w -> alpha w at rate b*w^beta (0 =< alpha =< 1, b>0, beta>0) are considered. Their moments are shown to decay not faster than algebraically for t -> \infty, and an equilibrium probability density is found for a rescaled process U = (t + k)^{-beta} W. A corresponding birth process is discussed.
A hierarchy of equations was introduced recently to describe the kinetics of homogeneous cooling of the gas of inelastic hard spheres. It is argued that this hierarchy does not describe this system accurately, and a simple test for this is proposed. A stochastic interpretation of the hierarchy is presented.