Billiards: A singular perturbation limit of smooth Hamiltonian flows

Abstract

Nonlinear multi-dimensional Hamiltonian systems that are not near integrable typically have mixed phase space and a plethora of instabilities. Hence, it is difficult to analyze them, to visualize them, or even to interpret their numerical simulations. We survey an emerging methodology for analyzing a class of such systems: Hamiltonians with steep potentials that limit to billiards.