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Orthogonal versus covariant Lyapunov vectors for rough hard disk systems

The Oseledec splitting of the tangent space into covariant subspaces for a hyperbolic dynamical system is numerically accessible by computing the full set of covariant Lyapunov vectors. In this paper, the covariant Lyapunov vectors, the orthogonal Gram-Schmidt vectors, and the corresponding local (time-dependent) Lyapunov exponents, are analyzed for a planar system of rough hard disks (RHDS). These results are compared to respective results for a smooth-hard-disk system (SHDS). We find that the rotation of the disks deeply affects the Oseledec splitting and the structure of the tangent space. For both the smooth and rough hard disks, the stable, unstable and central manifolds are transverse to each other, although the minimal angle between the unstable and stable manifolds of the RHDS typically is very small. Both systems are hyperbolic. However, the central manifold is precisely orthogonal to the rest of the tangent space only for the smooth-particle case and not for the rough disks. We also demonstrate that the rotations destroy the Hamiltonian character for the rough-hard-disk system.