Transport in few body systems Original Research Article

Transport in few body systems is a subject of importance in a very wide variety of problems. These range from large macroscopic systems found in celestial mechanics through the small microscopic systems of nuclear physics. In this paper we outline a theory of multidimensional (N ≥ 3) transport that is applicable to all of these systems. This theory, which has its origin in geometrical mechanics, allows one to obtain analytical expressions for the various geometrical objects associated with bottlenecks to the flow within phase space. Once these objects have been obtained, it is straightforward to calculate reaction rates and other important transport properties. Applications to nuclear, atomic and celestial system are discussed.