Hysteresis in Adiabatic Dynamical Systems: an Introduction

Abstract

We give a nontechnical description of the behaviour of dynamical systems governed by two distinct time scales. We discuss in particular memory effects, such as bifurcation delay and hysteresis, and comment the scaling behaviour of hysteresis cycles. These properties are illustrated on a few simple examples.

28 pages, 10 ps figures, AMS-LaTeX. This is the introduction of my Ph.D. dissertation, available at http://dpwww.epfl.ch/instituts/ipt/berglund/these.html