Arnol′d diffusion in a pendulum lattice

The main model studied in this paper is a lattice of pendula with a nearest‐neighbor coupling. If the coupling is weak, then the system is near‐integrable and KAM tori fill most of the phase space. For all KAM trajectories the energy of each pendulum stays within a narrow band for all time. Still, we show that for an arbitrarily weak coupling of a certain localized type, the neighboring pendula can exchange energy. In fact, the energy can be transferred between the pendula in any prescribed way