Diffusive transport and self-consistent dynamics in coupled maps -: art. no. 026224

The study of diffusion in Hamiltonian systems has been a problem of interest for a number of years. In this paper we explore the influence of self-consistency on the diffusion properties of systems described by coupled symplectic maps. Self-consistency, i.e., the backinfluence of the transported quantity on the velocity field of the driving flow, despite of its critical importance, is usually overlooked in the description of realistic systems, for example, in plasma physics. We propose a class of self-consistent models consisting of an ensemble of maps globally coupled through a mean field. Depending on the kind of coupling, two different general types of self-consistent maps are considered: maps coupled to the field only through the phase, and fully coupled maps, i.e., through the phase and the amplitude of the external field. The analogies and differences of the diffusion properties of these two kinds of maps are discussed in detail.