• Citer

E x B guiding-centre motion in three electrostatic waves: Statistics of separatrix crossings

par Weyssow, Boris
Référence Journal of plasma physics, 59, 4, page (761-772)
Publication Publié, 1998

Article révisé par les pairs

• Détails
• Contenu

Résumé :

E x B guiding-centre (GC) motion in a special configuration of three low-frequency electrostatic waves can be considered as a paradigmatic Hamiltonian system for studying adiabatic motion and separatrix crossings. A peculiarity of this system is that a single initial condition gives rise to two stroboscopic phase-space trajectories. According to the classical Hamiltonian theory, the proportion of points on the stroboscopic trajectories is a function of the time evolution of the surfaces enclosed by the separatrices in the phase space. This behaviour is qualitatively observed in test-particle numerical experiments. The ability of numerical integration methods like the 'classical' fourth-order Runge-Kutta integration scheme or a third-order symplectic integrator to reproduce the statistics is analysed. © 1998 Cambridge University Press.