The potential energy surface and chaos in 2D Hamiltonian systems

We provide a new insight into the relationship between the geometric property of the potential energy surface and chaotic behavior of 2D Hamiltonian dynamical systems, and give an indicator of chaos based on the geometric property of the potential energy surface by defining Mean Convex Index (MCI). We also discuss a model of unstable Hamiltonian in detail, and show our results in good agreement with HBLSL's (Horwitz, Ben Zion, Lewkowicz, Schiffer and Levitan) new Riemannian geometric criterion.