The dynamics of an ion acting on two monochromatic obliquely propagating Alfvén waves

Abstract

The interaction between a magnetized ion and two monochromatic shear Alfvén waves propagating obliquely to an ambient magnetic field is investigated both analytically and numerically. According to the Hamiltonian of this system, the invariant of motion at the lowest order and the half-island widths at the corresponding resonances are obtained analytically using the Lie transformation method. It is shown that these theoretical results agree with the numerical ones from the Poincaré surface of section. The regular motions from the invariant and the transition to stochasticity due to resonance overlapping are demonstrated. Compared to the case of a single wave, there may be a lower stochastic threshold in the multiple-wave problem.