The Nekhoroshev theorem and the observation of long-term diffusion in Hamiltonian systems

The long-term diffusion properties of the action variables in real analytic quasi- integrable Hamiltonian systems is a largely open problem. The Nekhoroshev theorem provides bounds to such a diffusion as well as a set of techniques, constituting its proof, which have been used to inspect also the instability of the action variables on times longer than the Nekhoroshev stability time. In particular, the separation of the motions in a superposition of a fast drift oscillation and an extremely slow diffusion along the resonances has been observed in several numerical experiments. Global diffusion, which occurs when the range of the slow diffusion largely exceeds the range of fast drift oscillations, needs times larger than the Nekhoroshev stability times to be observed, and despite the power of modern computers, it has been detected only in a small interval of the perturbation parameter, just below the critical threshold of application of the theorem. In this paper we show through an example how sharp this phenomenon is.