The nekhoroshev theorem and long-term stabilities in the solar system

The Nekhoroshev theorem has been often indicated in the last decades as the reference theorem for explaining the dynamics of several systems which are stable in the long-term. The Solar System dynamics provides a wide range of possible and useful applications. In fact, despite the complicated models which are used to numerically integrate realistic Solar System dynamics as accurately as possible, when the integrated solutions are chaotic the reliability of the numerical integrations is limited, and a theoretical long-term stability analysis is required. After the first formulation of Nekhoroshev?s theorem in 1977, many theoretical improvements have been achieved. On the one hand, alternative proofs of the theorem itself led to consistent improvements of the stability estimates; on the other hand, the extensions which were necessary to apply the theorem to the systems of interest for Solar System Dynamics, in particular concerning the removal of degeneracies and the implementation of computer assisted proofs, have been developed. In this review paper we discuss some of the motivations and the results which have made Nekhoroshev?s theorem a reference stability result for many applications in the Solar System dynamics.

Barriers to transport in aperiodically time-dependent two-dimensional velocity fields: Nekhoroshev's theorem and "Nearly Invariant" tori

In this paper we consider fluid transport in two-dimensional flows from the dynamical systems point of view, with the focus on elliptic behaviour and aperiodic and finite time dependence. We give an overview of previous work on general nonautonomous and finite time vector fields with the purpose of bringing to the attention of those working on fluid transport from the dynamical systems point of view a body of work that is extremely relevant, but appears not to be so well known. We then focus on the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser (KAM) theorem and the Nekhoroshev theorem. While there is no finite time or aperiodically time-dependent version of the KAM theorem, the Nekhoroshev theorem, by its very nature, is a finite time result, but for a "very long" (i.e. exponentially long with respect to the size of the perturbation) time interval and provides a rigorous quantification of "nearly invariant tori" over this very long timescale. We discuss an aperiodically time-dependent version of the Nekhoroshev theorem due to Giorgilli and Zehnder (1992) (recently refined by Bounemoura, 2013 and Fortunati and Wiggins, 2013) which is directly relevant to fluid transport problems. We give a detailed discussion of issues associated with the applicability of the KAM and Nekhoroshev theorems in specific flows. Finally, we consider a specific example of an aperiodically time-dependent flow where we show that the results of the Nekhoroshev theorem hold.

The role of a steepness parameter in the exponential stability of a model problem: Numerical aspects

The Nekhoroshev theorem considers quasi integrable Hamiltonians providing stability of actions in exponentially long times. One of the hypothesis required by the theorem is a mathematical condition called steepness. Nekhoroshev conjectured that different steepness properties should imply numerically observable differences in the stability times. After a recent study on this problem (Guzzo et al. 2011, Todorovic et al. 2011) we show some additional numerical results on the change of resonances and the diffusion laws produced by the increasing effect of steepness. The experiments are performed on a 4-dimensional steep symplectic map designed in a way that a parameter smoothly regulates the steepness properties in the model.