Fast Fermi Acceleration and Entropy Growth

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that non-ergodic chaotic Hamiltonian systems under slow periodic parameter changes universally exhibit exponential energy growth, linking Fermi acceleration to entropy increase via a geometric Brownian motion model.

Contribution

It introduces a universal mechanism for exponential energy growth in non-ergodic chaotic systems under slow parameter variation, connecting Fermi acceleration to entropy dynamics.

Findings

Non-ergodic chaotic systems exhibit exponential energy growth.

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

The process is linked to entropy increase in Hamiltonian systems.

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.