| The response of a system perturbed by an external transient interaction strongly depends on its initial internal state. In processes occurring from nearly resonant states the coupling interaction can induce a very specific and efficient transfer of energy among the internal degrees of freedom in the perturbed system. Classically this effect is understood in terms of the secular perturbation theory and the method of averaging. It is characterized by the existence of significant intervals of initial states in which significant changes in the actions variables of the perturbed integrable system occur, while an adiabatic invariant given by a linear combination of these actions is extremely well preserved. The size of each interval can be estimated from the maximum spread in phase space of the domain of a nonlinear resonance. Some analyzed processes, in which an efficient transfer of internal energy arises from the transient coupling between approximately resonant degrees of freedom in a two dimensional system, include the state resolved inelastic collisions between a vibrotationally excited diatom molecule and one atom, and the grazing incidence collision of an atom from a periodic surface. In this work we extend this analysis to the transient perturbation of nearly resonant multidimensional systems. |
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