Uncertainty in the dynamics of conservative maps

This paper studies the effect of uncertainty, using random perturbations, on area preserving maps of ℝ^2 to itself. We focus on the standard map and a discrete Duffing oscillator as specific examples. We relate the level of uncertainty to the large scale features in the dynamics in a precise way. We also study the effect of such perturbations on bifurcations in such maps. The main tools used for these investigations are a study of the eigenfunction and eigenvalue structure of the associated Perron-Frobenius operator along with set oriented methods for the numerical computations.