Characteristic times in the standard map.

We study and compare three characteristic times of the standard map: the Lyapunov time t_{L}, the Poincaré recurrence time t_{r}, and the stickiness (or escape) time t_{st}. The Lyapunov time is the inverse of the Lyapunov characteristic number (L) and in general is quite small. We find empirical relations for the L as a function of the nonlinearity parameter K and of the chaotic area A.

Global and local diffusion in the standard map.

We study the global and the local transport and diffusion in the case of the standard map, by calculating the diffusion exponent μ. In the global case, we find that the mean diffusion exponent for the whole phase space is either μ=1, denoting normal diffusion, or μ=2 denoting anomalous diffusion (and ballistic motion). The mean diffusion of the whole phase space is normal when no accelerator mode exists and it is anomalous (ballistic) when accelerator mode islands exist even if their area is tiny in the phase space.