Exponential energy growth in adiabatically changing Hamiltonian Systems

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that non-ergodic chaotic Hamiltonian systems undergoing slow periodic parameter changes universally exhibit exponential energy growth, modeled via geometric Brownian motion with entropy implications.

Contribution

It establishes a universal link between non-ergodicity and exponential energy growth in adiabatically changing Hamiltonian systems, providing a new stochastic model.

Findings

Non-ergodic chaotic systems show exponential energy growth.

Energy growth is modeled as geometric Brownian motion with positive drift.

The process relates to entropy increase in the system.

Abstract

Fermi acceleration is the process of energy transfer from massive objects in slow motion to light objects that move fast. The model for such process is a time-dependent Hamiltonian system. As the parameters of the system change with time, the energy is no longer conserved, which makes the acceleration possible. One of the main problems is how to generate a sustained and robust energy growth. We show that the non-ergodicity of any chaotic Hamiltonian system must universally lead to the exponential growth of energy at a slow periodic variation of parameters. We build a model for this process in terms of a Geometric Brownian Motion with a positive drift, and relate it to the entropy increase.