Smaller Alignment Index Research Articles

Orbital and escape dynamics in barred galaxies – III. The 3D system: correlations between the basins of escape and the NHIMs

The escape dynamics of the stars in a barred galaxy composed of a spherically symmetric central nucleus, a bar, a flat thin disk and a dark matter halo component is investigated by using a realistic three degrees of freedom (3-dof) dynamical model. Modern colour-coded diagrams are used for distinguishing between bounded and escaping motion. In addition, the smaller alignment index (SALI) method is deployed for determining the regular, sticky or chaotic nature of bounded orbits. We reveal the basins of escape corresponding to the escape through the two symmetrical escape channels around the Lagrange points $L_2$ and $L_3$ and also we relate them with the corresponding distribution of the escape times of the orbits. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the stable manifolds, around the index-1 saddle points, accurately define the fractal basin boundaries observed in the colour-coded diagrams. The development scenario of the fundamental vertical Lyapunov periodic orbit is thoroughly explored for obtaining a more complete view of the unfolding of the singular behaviour of the dynamics at the cusp values of the parameters. Finally, we examine how the combination of the most important parameters of the bar (such as the semi-major axis and the angular velocity) influences the observed stellar structures (rings and spirals) which are formed by escaping stars guided by the invariant manifolds near the saddle points.

Distinguishing between order and chaos in a simple barred galaxy model

We use a simple dynamical model to investigate the regular or chaotic character of orbits in a barred galaxy with a central, spherically symmetric, dense nucleus, and a flat disk. In particular, we explore how the total orbital energy influences the overall orbital structure of the system by computing in each case the percentage of regular, sticky and chaotic orbits. In an attempt to distinguish safely and with certainty between ordered and chaotic motion, we apply the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) as a chaos detector to large samples of orbits obtained by integrating numerically the basic equations of motion as well as the variational equations. We integrate large sets of initial conditions of orbits in several types of two‐dimensional planes for understanding the orbital properties better. Our numerical calculations suggest that the value of the energy has a huge impact on the percentages of the orbits, thus indicating that a rotating barred galaxy is indeed a very interesting stellar entity.

Frequency analysis of the laser driven nonlinear dynamics of HCN.

We study the vibrational dynamics of a model for the HCN molecule in the presence of a monochromatic laser field. The variation of the structural behavior of the system as a function of the laser frequency is analyzed in detail using the smaller alignment index, frequency maps, and diffusion coefficients. It is observed that the ergodicity of the system depends on the frequency of the excitation field, especially in its transitions from and into chaos. This provides a roadmap for the possibility of bond excitation and dissociation in this molecule.

Unravelling the escape dynamics and the nature of the normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds in tidally limited star clusters

The escape mechanism of orbits in a star cluster rotating around its parent galaxy in a circular orbit is investigated. A three degrees of freedom model is used for describing the dynamical properties of the Hamiltonian system. The gravitational field of the star cluster is represented by a smooth and spherically symmetric Plummer potential. We distinguish between ordered and chaotic orbits as well as between trapped and escaping orbits, considering only unbounded motion for several energy levels. The Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) method is used for determining the regular or chaotic nature of the orbits. The basins of escape are located and they are also correlated with the corresponding escape time of the orbits. Areas of bounded regular or chaotic motion and basins of escape were found to coexist in the $(x,z)$ plane. The properties of the normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds (NHIMs), located in the vicinity of the index-1 Lagrange points $L_1$ and $L_2$, are also explored. These manifolds are of paramount importance as they control the flow of stars over the saddle points, while they also trigger the formation of tidal tails observed in star clusters. Bifurcation diagrams of the Lyapunov periodic orbits as well as restrictions of the Poincar\'e map to the NHIMs are deployed for elucidating the dynamics in the neighbourhood of the saddle points. The extended tidal tails, or tidal arms, formed by stars with low velocity which escape through the Lagrange points are monitored. The numerical results of this work are also compared with previous related work.

Application of Indicators for Chaos in Chaotic Circuit Systems

Lyapunov exponent (LE), fast Lyapunov indicator (FLI), relative finite-time Lyapunov indicator (RLI), smaller alignment index (SALI), and generalized alignment index (GALI) are some of the available methods in most conservative systems. This study focuses on the effects of the above indicators on dissipative chaotic circuit systems such as the Lorenz system and a hyperchaotic model. Numerical experiments show that the performances of the chaos indicators in the hyperchaotic system are almost similar to those in the Lorenz system. These indicators clearly provide transition from chaotic to regular motion. However, FLI, RLI, SALI, and GALI cannot describe transition from chaos to hyperchaos. These indicators are also applied to study a new four-dimensional chaotic circuit system. The basic dynamic behaviors and structures are investigated analytically and numerically. The dynamic qualitative properties of individual orbits are observed using an oscilloscope. Moreover, the entire set of LE about the parameter is found to have three threshold values. Comparisons show that all chaos indicators are able to capture chaotic and periodic motion in chaotic circuit systems, but SALI displays significantly different behavior in several periodic orbits. SALI drops exponentially to zero for “morphologically regular” orbits that are actually unstable and sensitive to perturbation. This conclusion can also be confirmed by GALI.

Interplay between Dark Matter and Galactic Structure in Disk and Oblate Elliptical Galaxies

Understanding the regular or chaotic nature of orbits in galaxies is undoubtedly an issue of great importance. We determine the character of orbits of stars moving in the meridional plane (R, z) of an axially symmetric time-independent galactic model with a spherical central nucleus, and a flat biaxial oblate dark matter halo component. In particular, we try to reveal the influence of the fractional portion of dark matter on the structure and also on the different families of orbits of the galaxy, by monitoring how the percentage of chaotic orbits, as well as the percentages of orbits of the main regular resonant families evolve when the ratio of dark matter to luminous mass varies. The smaller alignment index (SALI) was computed by numerically integrating the equations of motion as well as the variational equations to extensive samples of orbits in order to distinguish between ordered and chaotic motion. In addition, a method based on the concept of spectral dynamics that utilizes the Fourier transform of the time series of each coordinate is used to identify the various families of regular orbits and also to recognize the secondary resonances that bifurcate from them. The investigation is carried out both in the physical (R, z) and the phase \((R,\dot {R})\) space for a better understanding of the orbital properties of the system. The numerical computations reveal that in both cases, the fractional portion of dark matter influences more or less, the overall orbital structure of the system. It was observed however, that the evolution of the percentages of all types of orbits as a function of the fractional portion of dark matter strongly depends on the particular type of space (physical or phase) in which the initial conditions of orbits are launched. The results are compared with the similar earlier work.

Classifying orbits in the classical Hénon–Heiles Hamiltonian system

The H\'{e}non-Heiles potential is undoubtedly one of the most simple, classical and characteristic Hamiltonian systems. The aim of this work is to reveal the influence of the value of the total orbital energy, which is the only parameter of the system, on the different families of orbits, by monitoring how the percentage of chaotic orbits, as well as the percentages of orbits composing the main regular families evolve when energy varies. In particular, we conduct a thorough numerical investigation distinguishing between ordered and chaotic orbits, considering only bounded motion for several energy levels. The smaller alignment index (SALI) was computed by numerically integrating the equations of motion as well as the variational equations to extensive samples of orbits in order to distinguish safely between ordered and chaotic motion. In addition, a method based on the concept of spectral dynamics that utilizes the Fourier transform of the time series of each coordinate is used to identify the various families of regular orbits and also to recognize the secondary resonances that bifurcate from them. Our exploration takes place both in the physical $(x,y)$ and the phase $(y,\dot{y})$ space for a better understanding of the orbital properties of the system. It was found, that for low energy levels the motion is entirely regular being the box orbits the most populated family, while as the value of the energy increases chaos and several resonant families appear. We also observed, that the vast majority of the resonant orbits belong in fact in bifurcated families of the main 1:1 resonant family. We have also compared our results with previous similar outcomes obtained using different chaos indicators.

Comparison of chaos detection methods in the circular restricted three‐body problem

AbstractIn this study, a sample of orbits is considered in the framework of the planar circular restricted three‐body problem. In order to separate ordered from chaotic orbits three numerical methods are compared: the Largest Lyapunov Characteristic Exponent (LLCE) and the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) provide a fairly good characterization of the chaotic motions, while the computational time required is of the same order; the Correlation Dimension (CD) has the advantage of correctly classifying sticky orbits, but at the expense of a longer computational time. In order to classify a given orbit, any pair of the three methods can be considered, but LLCE and SALI are recommended due to their speed. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Orbit classification of low and high angular momentum stars

We determine the character of orbits of stars moving in the meridional plane (R, z) of an axially symmetric time-independent disk galaxy model with a spherical central nucleus. In particular, we try to reveal the influence of the value of the angular momentum on the different families of orbits of stars, by monitoring how the percentage of chaotic orbits, as well as the percentages of orbits of the main regular resonant families evolve when angular momentum varies. The smaller alignment index (SALI) was computed by numerically integrating the equations of motion as well as the variational equations to extensive samples of orbits in order to distinguish safely between ordered and chaotic motion. In addition, a method based on the concept of spectral dynamics that utilizes the Fourier transform of the time series of each coordinate is used to identify the various families of regular orbits and also to recognize the secondary resonances that bifurcate from them. Our investigation takes place both in the physical (R, z) and the phase (R,R˙) space for a better understanding of the orbital properties of the system. Our numerical computations reveal that low angular momentum stars are most likely to move in chaotic orbits, while on the other hand, the vast majority of high angular momentum stars perform regular orbits.

Chaotic behavior of three interacting vortices in a confined Bose-Einstein condensate.

Motivated by recent experimental works, we investigate a system of vortex dynamics in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), consisting of three vortices, two of which have the same charge. These vortices are modeled as a system of point particles which possesses a Hamiltonian structure. This tripole system constitutes a prototypical model of vortices in BECs exhibiting chaos. By using the angular momentum integral of motion, we reduce the study of the system to the investigation of a two degree of freedom Hamiltonian model and acquire quantitative results about its chaotic behavior. Our investigation tool is the construction of scan maps by using the Smaller ALignment Index as a chaos indicator. Applying this approach to a large number of initial conditions, we manage to accurately and efficiently measure the extent of chaos in the model and its dependence on physically important parameters like the energy and the angular momentum of the system.

LP-VIcode : A program to compute a suite of variational chaos indicators

An important point in analysing the dynamics of a given stellar or planetary system is the reliable identification of the chaotic or regular behaviour of its orbits. We introduce here the program LP-VIcode, a fully operational code which efficiently computes a suite of ten variational chaos indicators for dynamical systems in any number of dimensions. The user may choose to simultaneously compute any number of chaos indicators among the following: the Lyapunov Exponents, the Mean Exponential Growth factor of Nearby Orbits, the Slope Estimation of the largest Lyapunov Characteristic Exponent, the Smaller ALignment Index, the Generalized ALignment Index, the Fast Lyapunov Indicator, the Othogonal Fast Lyapunov Indicator, the dynamical Spectra of Stretching Numbers, the Spectral Distance, and the Relative Lyapunov Indicator. They are combined in an efficient way, allowing the sharing of differential equations whenever this is possible, and the individual stopping of their computation when any of them saturates.

Classifying orbits in galaxy models with a prolate or an oblate dark matter halo component

We explore the nature of orbits of stars moving in the meridional plane $(R,z)$ of an axially symmetric galactic model with a disk, a spherical nucleus, and a flat biaxial dark matter halo component. In particular, we study the influence of all the involved parameters of the dynamical system, by computing both the percentage of chaotic orbits and the percentages of orbits of the main regular resonant families in each case. To distinguish between ordered and chaotic motion, we use the smaller alignment index (SALI) method to extensive samples of orbits by numerically integrating the equations of motion as well as the variational equations. Moreover, a method based on the concept of spectral dynamics that utilizes the Fourier transform of the time series of each coordinate is used to identify the various families of regular orbits and also to recognize the secondary resonances that bifurcate from them. Two cases are studied for every parameter: (i) the case where the halo component is prolate and (ii) the case where an oblate dark halo is present. Our numerical investigation indicates that all the dynamical quantities affect, more or less, the overall orbital structure. It was observed that the mass of the nucleus, the halo flattening parameter, the scale length of the halo, the angular momentum, and the orbital energy are the most influential quantities, while the effect of all the other parameters is much weaker. It was also found that all the parameters corresponding to the disk only have a minor influence on the nature of orbits. Furthermore, some other quantities, such as the minimum distance to the origin, the horizontal, and the vertical force, were tested as potential chaos detectors. Our analysis revealed that only general information can be obtained from these quantities. We also compared our results with early related work.

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VARIATIONAL CHAOS INDICATORS AND ODEs' NUMERICAL INTEGRATORS

The reader can find in the literature a lot of different techniques to study the dynamics of a given system and also, many suitable numerical integrators to compute them. Notwithstanding the recent work of [Maffione et al., 2011b] for mappings, a detailed comparison among the widespread indicators of chaos in a general system is still lacking. Such a comparison could lead to select the most efficient algorithms given a certain dynamical problem. Furthermore, in order to choose the appropriate numerical integrators to compute them, more comparative studies among numerical integrators are also needed. This work deals with both problems. We first extend the work of [Maffione et al., 2011b] for mappings to the 2D [Hénon & Heiles, 1964] potential, and compare several variational indicators of chaos: the Lyapunov Indicator (LI); the Mean Exponential Growth Factor of Nearby Orbits (MEGNO); the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) and its generalized version, the Generalized Alignment Index (GALI); the Fast Lyapunov Indicator (FLI) and its variant, the Orthogonal Fast Lyapunov Indicator (OFLI); the Spectral Distance (D) and the Dynamical Spectra of Stretching Numbers (SSNs). We also include in the record the Relative Lyapunov Indicator (RLI), which is not a variational indicator as the others. Then, we test a numerical technique to integrate Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) based on the Taylor method implemented by [Jorba & Zou, 2005] (called taylor), and we compare its performance with other two well-known efficient integrators: the [Prince & Dormand, 1981] implementation of a Runge–Kutta of order 7–8 (DOPRI8) and a Bulirsch–Stöer implementation. These tests are run under two very different systems from the complexity of their equations point of view: a triaxial galactic potential model and a perturbed 3D quartic oscillator. We first show that a combination of the FLI/OFLI, the MEGNO and the GALI 2N succeeds in describing in detail most of the dynamical characteristics of a general Hamiltonian system. In the second part, we show that the precision of taylor is better than that of the other integrators tested, but it is not well suited to integrate systems of equations which include the variational ones, like in the computing of almost all the preceeding indicators of chaos. The result which induces us to draw this conclusion is that the computing times spent by taylor are far greater than the times consumed by the DOPRI8 and the Bulirsch–Stöer integrators in such cases. On the other hand, the package is very efficient when we only need to integrate the equations of motion (both in precision and speed), for instance to study the chaotic diffusion. We also notice that taylor attains a greater precision on the coordinates than either the DOPRI8 or the Bulirsch–Stöer.

ANALYSIS OF ROUND OFF ERRORS WITH REVERSIBILITY TEST AS A DYNAMICAL INDICATOR

We compare the divergence of orbits and the reversibility error for discrete time dynamical systems. These two quantities are used to explore the behavior of the global error induced by round off in the computation of orbits. The similarity of results found for any system we have analyzed suggests the use of the reversibility error, whose computation is straightforward since it does not require the knowledge of the exact orbit, as a dynamical indicator. The statistics of fluctuations induced by round off for an ensemble of initial conditions has been compared with the results obtained in the case of random perturbations. Significant differences are observed in the case of regular orbits due to the correlations of round off error, whereas the results obtained for the chaotic case are nearly the same. Both the reversibility error and the orbit divergence computed for the same number of iterations on the whole phase space provide an insight on the local dynamical properties with a detail comparable with other dynamical indicators based on variational methods such as the finite time maximum Lyapunov characteristic exponent, the mean exponential growth factor of nearby orbits and the smaller alignment index. For 2D symplectic maps, the differentiation between regular and chaotic regions is well full-filled. For 4D symplectic maps, the structure of the resonance web as well as the nearby weakly chaotic regions are accurately described.

Hamiltonian control used to improve the beam stability in particle accelerator models

We derive a Hamiltonian control theory which can be applied to a 4D symplectic map that models a ring particle accelerator composed of elements with sextupole nonlinearity. The controlled system is designed to exhibit a more regular orbital behavior than the uncontrolled one. Using the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) chaos indicator, we are able to show that the controlled system has a dynamical aperture up to 1.7 times larger than the original model.

A comparison of different indicators of chaos based on the deviation vectors: application to symplectic mappings

The aim of this research work is to compare the reliability of several variational indicators of chaos on mappings. The Lyapunov Indicator (LI); the Mean Exponential Growth factor of Nearby Orbits (MEGNO); the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI); the Fast Lyapunov Indicator (FLI); the Dynamical Spectra of stretching numbers (SSN) and the corresponding Spectral Distance (D); and the Relative Lyapunov Indicator (RLI), which is based on the evolution of the difference between two close orbits, have been included. The experiments presented herein allow us to reliably suggest a group of chaos indicators to analyze a general mapping. We show that a package composed of the FLI and the RLI (to analyze the phase portrait globally) and the MEGNO and the SALI (to analyze orbits individually) is good enough to make a description of the systems' dynamics.

Weak chaos and the “melting transition” in a confined microplasma system

We present results demonstrating the occurrence of changes in the collective dynamics of a Hamiltonian system which describes a confined microplasma characterized by long-range Coulomb interactions. In its lower energy regime, we first detect macroscopically the transition from a "crystallinelike" to a "liquidlike" behavior, which we call the "melting transition." We then proceed to study this transition using a microscopic chaos indicator called the smaller alignment index (SALI), which utilizes two deviation vectors in the tangent dynamics of the flow and is nearly constant for ordered (quasiperiodic) orbits, while it decays exponentially to zero for chaotic orbits as exp[-(lambda(1)-lambda(2))t], where lambda(1)>lambda(2)>0 are the two largest Lyapunov exponents. During the melting phase, SALI exhibits a peculiar stairlike decay to zero, reminiscent of "sticky" orbits of Hamiltonian systems near the boundaries of resonance islands. This alerts us to the importance of the Deltalambda=lambda(1)-lambda(2) variations in that regime and helps us identify the energy range over which "melting" occurs as a multistage diffusion process through weakly chaotic layers in the phase space of the microplasma. Additional evidence supporting further the above findings is given by examining the GALI(k) indices, which generalize SALI (=GALI(2)) to the case of k>2 deviation vectors and depend on the complete spectrum of Lyapunov exponents of the tangent flow about the reference orbit.

EVOLUTIONARY METHODS FOR THE APPROXIMATION OF THE STABILITY DOMAIN AND FREQUENCY OPTIMIZATION OF CONSERVATIVE MAPS

Two methodologies are presented for the numerical approximation of the "domain of stability" of nonlinear conservative maps: (a) the Evolutionary Estimation of the Domain of Stability (EEDS) and (b) the Evolutionary Frequency Optimization (EFO), optimizing certain frequency parameters of these maps so that the domain of stability encompasses the maximum possible "volume" of bounded motion, known in the accelerator literature as the dynamic aperture. The central components of the proposed approaches are: The Differential Evolution algorithm (DE) based on concepts of Computational Intelligence and the method of the Smaller ALignment Index (SALI) used for the determination of chaotic dynamics. Initially, we give a brief description of the two methodologies and then demonstrate their usefulness by applying them to some well-known examples of 2D and 4D Hénon maps. The proposed methodologies can be easily applied to "volume" preserving maps which are not necessarily symplectic as well as to continuous dynamical systems (flows) and can also be generalized to treat conservative dynamical systems of any dimension.

Geometrical properties of local dynamics in Hamiltonian systems: The Generalized Alignment Index (GALI) method

We investigate the detailed dynamics of multi-dimensional Hamiltonian systems by studying the evolution of volume elements formed by unit deviation vectors about their orbits. The behavior of these volumes is strongly influenced by the regular or chaotic nature of the motion, the number of deviation vectors, their linear (in)dependence and the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. The different time evolution of these volumes can be used to identify rapidly and efficiently the nature of the dynamics, leading to the introduction of quantities that clearly distinguish between chaotic behavior and quasiperiodic motion on N -dimensional tori. More specifically we introduce the Generalized Alignment Index of order k ( GALI k ) as the volume of a generalized parallelepiped, whose edges are k initially linearly independent unit deviation vectors with respect to the orbit studied whose magnitude is normalized to unity at every time step. We show analytically and verify numerically on particular examples of N -degree-of-freedom Hamiltonian systems that, for chaotic orbits, GALI k tends exponentially to zero with exponents that involve the values of several Lyapunov exponents. In the case of regular orbits, GALI k fluctuates around non-zero values for 2 ≤ k ≤ N and goes to zero for N < k ≤ 2 N following power laws that depend on the dimension of the torus and the number m of deviation vectors initially tangent to the torus: ∝ t − 2 ( k − N ) + m if 0 ≤ m < k − N , and ∝ t − ( k − N ) if m ≥ k − N . The GALI k is a generalization of the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) ( GALI 2 ∝ SALI ). However, GALI k provides significantly more detailed information on the local dynamics, allows for a faster and clearer distinction between order and chaos than SALI and works even in cases where the SALI method is inconclusive.

Application of the SALI chaos detection method to accelerator mappings

We apply the Smaller ALignment Index (SALI) method to a four-dimensional mapping of accelerator dynamics in order to distinguish rapidly, reliably and accurately between ordered and chaotic motion. The main advantage of this index is that it tends exponentially to zero in the case of chaotic orbits, while it fluctuates around non-zero values in the case of quasiperiodic trajectories. Thus, it avoids the notorious ambiguities concerning the eventual convergence of (maximum) Lyapunov exponents to (positive) non-zero values. Exploiting the different behavior of SALI in these two cases we produce phase space ‘charts’ where regions of chaos and order are clearly identified. Evaluating the percentage of chaotic and escaping orbits as a function of the distance from the origin we are able to estimate rapidly and accurately the boundaries of the dynamical aperture of a proton beam, passing repeatedly through an array of magnetic focusing elements.