Scarring in classical chaotic dynamics with noise

Abstract

We report the numerical observation of scarring, that is enhancement of probability density around unstable periodic orbits of a chaotic system, in the eigenfunctions of the classical Perron-Frobenius operator of noisy Anosov ("cat") maps, as well as in the noisy Bunimovich stadium. A parallel is drawn between classical and quantum scars, based on the unitarity or non-unitarity of the respective propagators. For uniformly hyperbolic systems such as the cat map, we provide a mechanistic explanation for the classical phase-space localization detected, based on the distribution of finite-time Lyapunov exponents, and the interplay of noise with deterministic dynamics. Classical scarring can be measured by studying autocorrelation functions and their power spectra.