Topological Analysis of Chaotic Transport Through a Ballistic Atom Pump

We examine a system consisting of two reservoirs of particles connected by a channel. In the channel are two oscillating repulsive potential-energy barriers. It is known that such a system can transport particles from one reservoir to the other, even when the chemical potentials in the reservoirs are equal. We use computations and the theory of chaotic transport to study this system. Chaotic transport is described by passage around or through a heteroclinic tangle. Topological properties of the tangle are described using a generalization of homotopic lobe dynamics, which is a theory that gives some properties of intermediate-time behavior from properties of short-time behavior. We compare these predicted properties with direct computation of trajectories