Regularity and chaos in Vlasov evolution of nuclear matter

In this work we perform an analysis of the onset of chaos in mean-field dynamics in the presence of volume instabilities. As a main finding, we show that the mean-field evolution presents two different regimes: a first one dominated by the almost decoupled amplification of several collective unstable modes, leading to the early condensation of the system into clusters, which is followed by a second stage dominated by a coalescence mechanism among the large-density domains. Finally we show that, even at the latest stage considered, chaos does not appear as fully developed since a hierarchy of the different unstable modes, inherited from the initial regular amplification of instabilities, remains. © 1996 The American Physical Society.