Detecting Order and Chaos by the Linear Dependence Index (LDI) Method

We introduce a new methodology for a fast and reliable discrimination between ordered and chaotic orbits in multidimensional Hamiltonian systems which we call the Linear Dependence Index (LDI). The new method is based on the recently introduced theory of the Generalized Alignment Indices (GALI). LDI takes advantage of the linear dependence (or independence) of deviation vectors of a given orbit, using the method of Singular Value Decomposition at every time step of the integration. We show that the LDI produces estimates which numerically coincide with those of the GALI method for the same number of $m$ deviation vectors, while its main advantage is that it requires considerable less CPU time than GALI especially in Hamiltonian systems of many degrees of freedom