Multistage slow relaxation in a Hamiltonian system: The Fermi-Pasta-Ulam model

The relaxation process toward equipartition of energy among normal modes in a Hamiltonian system with many degrees of freedom, the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) model is investigated numerically. We introduce a general indicator of relaxation σ which denotes the distance from equipartition state. In the time evolution of σ, some long-time interferences with relaxation, named "plateaus," are observed. In order to examine the details of the plateaus, relaxation time of σ and excitation time for each normal mode are measured as a function of the energy density ε0=E0/N. As a result, multistage relaxation is detected in the finite-size system. Moreover, by an analysis of the Lyapunov spectrum, the spectrum of mode energy occupancy, and the power spectrum of mode energy, we characterize the multistage slow relaxation, and some dynamical phases are extracted: quasiperiodic motion, stagnant motion (escaping from quasiperiodic motion), local chaos, and stronger chaos with nonthermal noise. We emphasize that the plateaus are robust against the arranging microscopic state. In other words, we can often observe plateaus and multistage slow relaxation in the FPU phase space. Slow relaxation is expected to remain or vanish in the thermodynamic limit depending on indicators.