Foreword

Abstract

During the national meeting on Condensed Matter Physics in Caxambu, Minas Gerais, in 2003, these colleagues presented an evaluation of the thematic meetings in the area, and pointed out the need to create a new forum in which students, theoretical and experimental researchers in Atomic, Molecular, Chemical Physics, and Spectroscopy, could meet in a restricted but relaxed environment in order to present their results (complete and in progress) and discuss their research work. This forum would open an opportunity for contacts, exchanging ideas, and for the planning of future collaborations. The fi rst and second workshops in Molecular Physics and Spectroscopy were held in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, at the Institute of Physics of the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), in November 2003 and 2004, respectively. They included about 60 participants, with the same format proposed by the organizers. This series of meetings continued in November 2005, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, at the Department of Physics of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), which indicates the support of the community in this area in Brazil. In this special issue of the Braz. J. Phys., we register a sample of the results presented at the II WMPS. We owe many thanks to all of those who contributed to the success of this workshop, the chairpersons, the plenary and oral talk speakers, the participants, and the institutions that provided the fi nancial support (CNPq, FAPERJ, Fundação Euclides da Cunha-UFF). Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to the Sociedade Brasileira de Física, and especially to Professor S. R. Salinas, editor of the Braz. J. Phys., for accepting the publication of these proceedings.

Predictability of orbits in coupled systems through finite-time Lyapunov exponents

“…We would like to emphasize that the exponents may fluctuate without being a clear cut of the UDV [35,36]. There are situations where the positive tails appear not due to the UDV, but rather by other mechanisms such as the quasi-tangencies between the stable and unstable manifolds near a homoclinic crisis.…”