title: Chaos and relaxation to equilibrium in systems with long-range interactions.
abstract: In the thermodynamic limit, systems with long-range interactions do not relax to equilibrium, but become trapped in nonequilibrium stationary states. For a finite number of particles a nonequilibrium state has a finite lifetime, so that eventually a system will relax to thermodynamic equilibrium. The time that a system remains trapped in a quasistationary state (QSS) scales with the number of particles as N(δ), with δ>0, and diverges in the thermodynamic limit. In this paper we will explore the role of chaotic dynamics on the time that a system remains trapped in a QSS. We discover that chaos, measured by the Lyapunov exponents, favors faster relaxation to equilibrium. Surprisingly, weak chaos favors faster relaxation than strong chaos.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Caixa Postal 15051, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Felipe L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Antunes
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Caixa Postal 15051, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Fernanda P C
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Benetti
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Caixa Postal 15051, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Renato
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pakter
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Caixa Postal 15051, CEP 91501-970, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Levin