Accelerator modes and anomalous diffusion in 3D volume-preserving maps

Abstract

Angle-action maps that have a periodicity in the action direction can have accelerator modes: orbits that are periodic when projected onto the torus, but that lift to unbounded orbits in an action variable. In this paper we construct a family of volume-preserving maps, with two angles and one action, that have accelerator modes created at Hopf-one (or saddle-center-Hopf) bifurcations. Near such a bifurcation we show that there is often a bubble of invariant tori. Computations of chaotic orbits near such a bubble show that the trapping times have an algebraic decay similar to that seen around stability islands in area-preserving maps. As in the 2D case, this gives rise to anomalous diffusive properties of the action in our 3D map.