Violation of adiabaticity in magnetic billiards due to separatrix crossings.

ABSTRACT

We consider dynamics of magnetic billiards with curved boundaries and strong inhomogeneous magnetic field. We investigate a violation of adiabaticity of charged particle motion in this system. The destruction of the adiabatic invariance is due to the change of type of the particle trajectory particles can drift along the boundary reflecting from it or rotate around the magnetic field at some distance from the boundary without collisions with it. Trajectories of these two types are demarcated in the phase space by a separatrix. Crossings of the separatrix result in jumps of the adiabatic invariant. We derive an asymptotic formula for such a jump and demonstrate that an accumulation of these jumps leads to the destruction of the adiabatic invariance.