Eur. Phys. J. B (2015) 88: 57
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-50641-5

Regular Article

Dynamics of a classical particle in a quasi periodic potential

¹ Physics Department, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, 32000 Haifa, Israel
² Mathematics Department, Rutgers University, New-Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA

^a e-mail: yanivten@tx.technion.ac.il

Received: 22 September 2014
Received in final form: 31 December 2014
Published online: 11 March 2015

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a one-dimensional classical particle in a space and time dependent potential with randomly chosen parameters. The focus of this work is a quasi-periodic potential, which only includes a finite number of Fourier components. The momentum is calculated analytically for short time within a self-consistent approximation, under certain conditions. We find that the dynamics can be described by a model of a random walk between the Chirikov resonances, which are resonances between the particle momentum and the Fourier components of the potential. We use numerical methods to test these results and to evaluate the important properties, such as the characteristic hopping time between the resonances. This work sheds light on the short time dynamics induced by potentials which are relevant for optics and atom optics.