Chaotic ray propagation in corrugated layers

M. Bottiglieri (1) , S. de Martino (2) , M. Falanga (2) , C. Godano (1)

1 Environmental Department
2 Physics Department

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of a corrugated wall on the behaviour of propagating rays. Different types of corrugation are considered, using different distributions of the corrugation heights: white Gaussian, power law, self-affine perturbation. In phase space, a prevalent chaotic behaviour of rays, and the presence of a lot of caustics, are observed. These results entail that the KAM theorem is not fulfilled.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Sciences de la Terre

M. Bottiglieri, S. de Martino, M. Falanga, C. Godano. Chaotic ray propagation in corrugated layers. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2005, 12 (6), pp.1003-1009. ⟨hal-00303049⟩