Chaotic diffusion on periodic orbits: The perturbed Arnold cat map

Chaotic diffusion on periodic orbits ~POs! is studied for the perturbed Arnold cat map on a cylinder, in a range of perturbation parameters corresponding to an extended structural-stability regime of the system on the torus. The diffusion coefficient is calculated, using the following PO formulas: ~1! the curvature expansion of the Ruelle z function; ~2! the average of the PO winding-number squared, w2, weighted by a stability factor; ~3! the uniform ~nonweighted! average of w2. The results from formulas ~1! and ~2! agree very well with those obtained by standard methods, for all the perturbation parameters considered. Formula ~3! gives reasonably accurate results for sufficiently small parameters corresponding also to cases of a considerably nonuniform hyperbolicity. This is due to uniformity sum rules satisfied by the PO Lyapunov eigenvalues at fixed w. These sum rules follow from general arguments and are supported by much numerical evidence.