Arnold diffusion in multidimensional a priori unstable Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

We study the Arnold diffusion in a priori unstable near-integrable systems in a neighbourhood of a resonance of low order. We consider a non-autonomous near-integrable Hamiltonian system with $n+1/2$ degrees of freedom, $n\ge 2$. Let the Hamilton function $H$ of depend on the parameter $\epsilon$, for $\epsilon =0$ the system is integrable and has a homoclinic asymptotic manifold $\Gamma$. Our main result is that for small generic perturbation in an $\epsilon$-neighborhood of $\Gamma$ there exist trajectories the projections of which on the space of actions cross the resonance. By ``generic perturbations'' we mean an open dense set in the space of $C^r$-smooth functions $\frac{d}{d\epsilon }{|}_{\epsilon =0}H$, $r=r_0,r_0+1,\dots ,\infty ,\omega$. Combination of this result with results of \cite{DT} answers the main questions on the Arnold diffusion in a priori unstable case: the diffusion takes place for generic perturbation, diffusion trajectories can go along any smooth curve in the action space with average velocity of order $\epsilon /|\log \epsilon |$.

47 pages