Collective and chaotic motion in self-bound many-body systems - art. no. 034602

We investigate the interplay of collective and chaotic motion in a classica l self-bound N-body system with two-body interactions. This system displays a hierarchy of three well-separated time scales that govern the onset of c haos, damping of collective motion and equilibration. Comparison with a mea n-field problem shows that damping is mainly due to dephasing. The Lyapunov exponent, damping, and equilibration races depend mildly on the system siz e N.