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Integrability-breaking phase transitions in stadiumlike billiards

Anne Kétri P. da Fonseca* and Edson D. Leonel

  • Departamento de Física, UNESP—Universidade Estadual Paulista, Avenida 24A, 1515, 13506-700 Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil

  • *Contact author: anneketri@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. E 114, 054210 – Published 9 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mnqq-y5ht

Abstract

We investigate integrability-breaking transitions in two classes of stadiumlike billiards with parabolic boundaries. While focusing boundaries generate a mixed phase space in which regular islands coexist with a chaotic sea, dispersing boundaries produce a fully chaotic phase space for any finite boundary deformation. By analyzing the scaling behavior of the roughness ω, we identify two qualitatively distinct transitions: a continuous transition for the focusing geometry and a first-order transition for the dispersing one. We determine the corresponding critical exponents and establish the associated scaling laws. For the continuous transition, we further provide a complete characterization within the framework of critical phenomena by identifying the broken symmetry, the order parameter and its diverging susceptibility, the elementary excitations responsible for chaotic diffusion, and the topological defects governing transport. These results establish a statistical-mechanics framework for describing integrability-breaking transitions in Hamiltonian billiards and suggest that the concepts of critical phenomena naturally extend to deterministic nonlinear dynamical systems.

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Information

Phys. Rev. E 114, 054210– Published 9 November, 2026
  • Received 17 July 2026
  • Accepted 27 October 2026
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