  We investigate the dynamics of chaotic trajectories in simple yet physically
important Hamiltonian systems with non-hierarchical borders between regular and
chaotic regions with positive measures. We show that the stickiness to the
border of the regular regions in systems with such a sharply divided phase
space occurs through one-parameter families of marginally unstable periodic
orbits and is characterized by an exponent \gamma= 2 for the asymptotic
power-law decay of the distribution of recurrence times. Generic perturbations
lead to systems with hierarchical phase space, where the stickiness is
apparently enhanced due to the presence of infinitely many regular islands and
Cantori. In this case, we show that the distribution of recurrence times can be
composed of a sum of exponentials or a sum of power-laws, depending on the
relative contribution of the primary and secondary structures of the hierarchy.
Numerical verification of our main results are provided for area-preserving
maps, mushroom billiards, and the newly defined magnetic mushroom billiards.
