TY - JOUR
T1 - How Does the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) Distinguish Order from Chaos?
AU - Skokos, Charalampos
AU - Antonopoulos, Chris
AU - Bountis, Tassos C.
AU - Vrahatis, Michael N.
PY - 2003/1/1
Y1 - 2003/1/1
N2 - The ability of the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) to distinguish chaotic from ordered motion, has been demonstrated recently in several publications. [Ch. Skokos, J. of Phys. A 34 (2001), 10029. Ch. Skokos, Ch. Antonopoulos, T. C. Bountis and M. N. Vrahatis, in Proceedings of the 4th GRACM Congress on Computational Mechanics, ed. D. T. Tsahalis (Univ. Patras, Patras, 2002), Vol. IV, p. 1496; in Libration Point Orbits and Applications, ed. G. Gómez, M. W. Lo and J. J. Masdemont (World Scientific, 2003), in press, nlin.CD/0210053.] Basically it is observed that in chaotic regions the SALI goes to zero very rapidly, while it fluctuates around a nonzero value in ordered regions. In this paper, we make a first step forward explaining these results by studying in detail the evolution of small deviations from regular orbits lying on the invariant tori of an integrable 2D Hamiltonian system. We show that, in general, any two initial deviation vectors will eventually fall on the "tangent space" of the torus, pointing in different directions due to the different dynamics of the 2 integrals of motion, which means that the SALI (or the smaller angle between these vectors) will oscillate away from zero for all time.
AB - The ability of the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) to distinguish chaotic from ordered motion, has been demonstrated recently in several publications. [Ch. Skokos, J. of Phys. A 34 (2001), 10029. Ch. Skokos, Ch. Antonopoulos, T. C. Bountis and M. N. Vrahatis, in Proceedings of the 4th GRACM Congress on Computational Mechanics, ed. D. T. Tsahalis (Univ. Patras, Patras, 2002), Vol. IV, p. 1496; in Libration Point Orbits and Applications, ed. G. Gómez, M. W. Lo and J. J. Masdemont (World Scientific, 2003), in press, nlin.CD/0210053.] Basically it is observed that in chaotic regions the SALI goes to zero very rapidly, while it fluctuates around a nonzero value in ordered regions. In this paper, we make a first step forward explaining these results by studying in detail the evolution of small deviations from regular orbits lying on the invariant tori of an integrable 2D Hamiltonian system. We show that, in general, any two initial deviation vectors will eventually fall on the "tangent space" of the torus, pointing in different directions due to the different dynamics of the 2 integrals of motion, which means that the SALI (or the smaller angle between these vectors) will oscillate away from zero for all time.
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U2 - 10.1143/PTPS.150.439
DO - 10.1143/PTPS.150.439
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0345411904
VL - 150
SP - 439
EP - 443
JO - Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement
JF - Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement
SN - 0375-9687
ER -