Chaotic dynamics in the kicked rotator problem

Kicker rotator (or rotor) problem is one of the classical examples of dynamical chaos in physics. The focus of this problem is a particle which moves in circular motion (e.g., pendulum on a stick). This particle is being acted upon periodically, lets assume that \( T=1 \), by homogeneous field (e.g., gravitational field, which is being turned on periodically for a brief periods of time). When the field is on, it creates a force, acting on the particle, of strength \( K \). As field is on only for a very brief periods of time, the force may be approximated by the Dirac delta function.

Earthquake model

One of the classical examples of power-law distributions may be found in geology. It is the Gutenberg-Richeter law, which relates the number of earthquakes to their magnitude. Mathematically this relation is expressed as \( \lg N = a - b M \). Here \( N \) is a number of earthquakes of certain magnitude \( M \) or stronger, \( b \) is empirically determined and depends on seismic activity of the region, while \( a = \lg N_0 \).

In this text we will briefly present self-organized criticality model, which reproduces the power-law distribution of earthquakes - Olami-Feder-Christensen model.

Elementary model reproducing q-Gaussian distribution

q-Gaussian distribution is rather interesting generalization of the well-known Gaussian distribution. This generalization arises from the generalized, non-extensive, statistical mechanics, which was proposed by C. Tsallis two decades ago. Despite the fact twenty years have passed there is no simple physical model reproducing the q-Gaussian distribution. But our colleague Julius Ruseckas recently proposed one [1]. In this text we will briefly discuss his "correlated spin" model and will present two related interactive applets.