Nonstandard entropy production in the standard map

We investigate the time evolution of the entropy for a paradigmatic conservative dynamical system, the standard map, for different values of its controlling parameter a. When the phase space is sufficiently 'chaotic' (i.e., for large \a\), we reproduce previous results. For small values of \a\, when the phase space becomes an intricate structure with the coexistence of chaotic and regular regions, an anomalous regime emerges. We characterize this anomalous regime with the generalized nonextensive entropy, and we observe that for values of a approaching zero, it lasts for an increasingly large time. This scenario displays a striking analogy with recent observations made in isolated classical long-range N-body Hamiltonians, where, for a large class of initial conditions, a metastable state (whose duration diverges with 1/N --> 0) is observed before it crosses over to the usual, Boltzmann-Gibbs regime. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.