Lyapunov stability of Vlasov equilibria using Fourier-Hermite modes.

We propose an efficient method to compute Lyapunov exponents and Lyapunov eigenvectors of long-range interacting many-particle systems, whose dynamics is described by the Vlasov equation. We show that an expansion of a distribution function using Hermite modes (in velocity variable) and Fourier modes (in configuration variable) converges fast if an appropriate scaling parameter is introduced and identified with the inverse of the temperature. As a consequence, dynamics and linear stability properties of many-particle states, both in the close-to and in the far-from equilibrium regimes, can be predicted using a small number of expansion coefficients. As an example of a long-range interacting system we investigate stability properties of stationary states, the Hamiltonian mean-field model.