Faster than Lyapunov decays of classical Loshcmidt echo

Abstract

We show that in the classical interaction picture the echo-dynamics, namely the composition of perturbed forward and unperturbed backward hamiltonian evolution, can be treated as a time-dependent hamiltonian system. For strongly chaotic (Anosov) systems we derive a cascade of exponential decays for the classical Loschmidt echo, starting with the leading Lyapunov exponent, followed by a sum of two largest exponents, etc. In the loxodromic case a decay starts with the rate given as twice the largest Lyapunov exponent. For a class of perturbations of symplectic maps the echo-dynamics exhibits a drift resulting in a super-exponential decay of the Loschmidt echo.

4 pages in revtex, 3 figures (4 .eps files), revised, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett