Chaos in a modified Hénon-Heiles system describing geodesics in gravitational waves

Article

Chaos in a modified Hénon-Heiles system describing geodesics in gravitational waves

Veselý, K; Podolský, J.

Phys. Lett. A 271(0), 368-376 (2000)

Abstract

A Hamiltonian system with a modified Henon-Heiles potential is investigated. This describes the motion of free test particles in vacuum gravitational pp-wave spacetimes with both quadratic ("homogeneous") and cubic ("non-homogeneous") terms in the structural function. It is shown that, for energies above a certain value, the motion is chaotic in the sense that the boundaries separating the basins of possible escapes become fractal. Similarities and differences with the standard Henon-Heiles and the monkey saddle systems are discussed. The box-counting dimension of the basin boundaries is also calculated.

Institute authors

Podolský, Jiří

Supported by

GACR 202/99/0261 — Relativistic physics and astrophysics
GAUK 141/2000 — Relativistická teorie gravitace, astrofyzika a kosmologie

BibTeX

@article{UTF158,
  author        = {Veselý, K and Podolský, J.},
  title         = {{Chaos in a modified Hénon-Heiles system describing geodesics in gravitational waves}},
  journal       = {Phys. Lett. A},
  volume        = {271},
  number        = {0},
  pages         = {368-376},
  year          = {2000},
  doi           = {10.1016/S0375-9601(00)00391-1},
  eprint        = {gr-qc/0006066},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url           = {http://arxiv.org/PS\_cache/gr-qc/pdf/0006/0006066v1.pdf},
}