  We present theoretical and numerical results pointing towards a strong
connection between the estimates for the diffusion rate along simple resonances
in multidimensional nonlinear Hamiltonian systems that can be obtained using
the heuristic theory of Chirikov and a more formal one due to Nekhoroshev. We
show that, despite a wide-spread impression, the two theories are complementary
rather than antagonist. Indeed, although Chirikov's 1979 review has thousands
of citations, almost all of them refer to topics such as the resonance overlap
criterion, fast diffusion, the Standard or Whisker Map, and not to the
constructive theory providing a formula to measure diffusion along a single
resonance. However, as will be demonstrated explicitly below, Chirikov's
formula provides values of the diffusion coefficient which are quite well
comparable to the numerically computed ones, provided that it is implemented on
the so-called optimal normal form derived as in the analytic part of
Nekhoroshev's theorem. On the other hand, Chirikov's formula yields unrealistic
values of the diffusion coefficient, in particular for very small values of the
perturbation, when used in the original Hamiltonian instead of the optimal
normal form. In the present paper, we take advantage of this complementarity in
order to obtain accurate theoretical predictions for the local value of the
diffusion coefficient along a resonance in a specific 3DoF nearly integrable
Hamiltonian system. Besides, we compute numerically the diffusion coefficient
and a full comparison of all estimates is made for ten values of the
perturbation parameter, showing a very satisfactory agreement.
