A Hamiltonian system of three degrees of freedom with eight channels of escape: The Great Escape

Abstract

In this work, we try to shed some light to the nature of orbits in a three-dimensional (3D) potential of a perturbed harmonic oscillator with eight possible channels of escape, which was chosen as an interesting example of open 3D Hamiltonian systems. In particular, we conduct a thorough numerical investigation distinguishing between regular and chaotic orbits as well as between trapped and escaping orbits, considering unbounded motion for several values of the energy. In an attempt to discriminate safely and with certainty between ordered and chaotic motion, we use the Smaller ALingment Index (SALI) detector, computed by integrating numerically the basic equations of motion as well as the variational equations. Of particular interest is to locate the basins of escape toward the different escape channels and connect them with the corresponding escape periods of the orbits. We split our study into three different cases depending on the initial value of the \(z\) coordinate which was used for launching the test particles. We found that when the orbits are started very close to the primary \((x,y)\) plane the respective grids exhibit a high degree of fractalization, while on the other hand for orbits with relatively high values of \(z_0\) several well-formed basins of escape emerge thus reducing significantly the fractalization of the grids. It was also observed that for values of energy very close to the escape energy the escape times of orbits are large, while for energy levels much higher than the escape energy the vast majority of orbits escape extremely fast or even immediately to infinity. We hope our outcomes to be useful for a further understanding of the escape process in open 3D Hamiltonian systems.