A general mechanism of diffusion in hamiltonian systems: qualitative results

We present a general mechanism to establish the existence of diffusing orbits in a large class of nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems. Our approach is based on following the “outer dynamics” along homoclinic orbits to a normally hyperbolic invariant manifold. The information on the outer dynamics is encoded by a geometrically defined “scattering map.” We show that for every finite sequence of successive iterations of the scattering map, there exists a true orbit that follows that sequence, provided that the inner dynamics is recurrent. We apply this result to prove the existence of diffusing orbits that cross large gaps in a priori unstable models of arbitrary degrees of freedom, when the unperturbed Hamiltonian is not necessarily convex and the induced inner dynamics is not necessarily a twist map, and the perturbation satisfies explicit conditions that are generic. We also mention several other applications where this mechanism is easy to verify (analytically or numerically), such as the planar elliptic restricted three-body problem and the spatial circular restricted three-body problem. Our method differs, in several crucial aspects, from earlier works. Unlike the well-known “two-dynamics” approach, the method we present here relies on the outer dynamics alone. There are virtually no assumptions on the inner dynamics, such as on existence of its invariant objects (e.g., primary and secondary tori, lower-dimensional hyperbolic tori, and their stable/unstable manifolds, Aubry-Mather sets), which are not used at all.Peer Reviewe