Critical and Supercritical Dynamics of Quasiperiodic Systems

Abstract

The almost periodic eigenvalue problem described by the Harper equation is connected to other classes of quasiperiodic behaviour: the dissipative dynamics on critical invariant tori and quasiperiodically driven maps. Firstly, the strong coupling limit of the supercritical Harper equation and the strong dissipation limit of the critical standard map play equivalent role in the renormalization analysis of the self-similar fluctuations of localized eigenfunctions and the universal slope of the projected map on the invariant circle. Secondly, we use a simple transformation to relate the Harper equation to a quasiperiodically forced one-dimensional map. In this case, the localized eigenstates of the supercritical Harper equation correspond to strange but nonchaotic attractors of the driven map. Furthermore, the existence of localization in the eigenvalue problem is associated with the appearance of homoclinic points in the corresponding map.