Fermi acceleration in chaotic shape-preserving billiards

Abstract

We study theoretically and numerically the velocity dynamics of fully chaotic time-dependent shape-preserving billiards. The average velocity of an ensemble of initial conditions generally asymptotically follows the power law $v = n^β$ with respect to the number of collisions n. If the shape of the chaotic time-dependent billiard is not preserved it is well known that the acceleration exponent is $β= 1/2$. We show, on the other hand, that if the shape of the billiard is preserved then the only possible values of $β$ are $1/4$, $1/6$ and in a special case $0$. We show that the value of $β$ is determined solely by whether the angular momentum of the billiard is preserved or not. Our theory is centered around the detailed study of the energy fluctuations in the adiabatic limit. We show that three quantities, two scalars and one tensor, completely determine the energy fluctuations of the billiard for arbitrary time-dependent shape-preserving transformations. Finally we provide several interesting numerical examples all in a perfect agreement with the theory.