Nekhoroshev estimates for finitely differentiable quasi-convex Hamiltonians

A major result about perturbations of integrable Hamiltonian systems is the Nekhoroshev theorem, which gives exponential stability for all solutions provided the system is analytic and the integrable Hamiltonian is generic. In the particular but important case where the latter is quasi-convex, these exponential estimates have been generalized by Marco and Sauzin if the Hamiltonian is Gevrey regular, using a method introduced by Lochak in the analytic case. In this paper, using the same approach, we investigate the situation where the Hamiltonian is assumed to be only finitely differentiable, for which it is known that exponential stability does not hold but nevertheless we prove estimates of polynomial stability.     

Quantum Birkhoff normal forms

We consider quantum analogues of several theorems on Birkhoff normal forms and prove a quantum analogue of the theorem on reducing a Hamiltonian to the normal form and the analogue of the theorem on reducing a Hamiltonian to the real normal form. We obtain the normal form explicitly in the nonresonant case. We consider the uniqueness problems of the normal form and of the normalizing transformation in the nonresonant and resonant cases.     

Remarks on the derivation of the hydrostatic Euler equations

The motion of an inviscid incompressible fluid between two horizontal plates is studied in the limit when the plates are infinitesimally close. The convergence of the solutions of the Euler equations to those of their formal ‘hydrostatic’ limit can be established in the case when the initial velocity field satisfies a local Rayleigh conditions. This result, originally obtained by Grenier through weighted energy estimates based on Arnold's stability analysis of the Euler equations, is proven here by a more straightforward method even closer to Arnold's method.     

Rigidity of Hamiltonian actions on Poisson manifolds

This paper is about the rigidity of compact group actions in the Poisson context. The main result is that Hamiltonian actions of compact semisimple type are rigid. We prove it via a Nash–Moser normal form theorem for closed subgroups of SCI type. This Nash–Moser normal form has other applications to stability results that we will explore in a future paper. We also review some classical rigidity results for differentiable actions of compact Lie groups and export it to the case of symplectic actions of compact Lie groups on symplectic manifolds.     

Instabilities of Multihump Vector Solitons in Coupled Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations

Spectral stability of multihump vector solitons in the Hamiltonian system of coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations is investigated both analytically and numerically. Using the closure theorem for the negative index of the linearized Hamiltonian, we classify all possible bifurcations of unstable eigenvalues in the systems of coupled NLS equations with cubic and saturable nonlinearities. We also determine the eigenvalue spectrum numerically by the shooting method. In case of cubic nonlinearities, all multihump vector solitons in the nonintegrable model are found to be linearly unstable. In case of saturable nonlinearities, stable multihump vector solitons are found in certain parameter regions, and some errors in the literature are corrected.     

On the Constructive Algorithm for Stability Analysis of an Equilibrium Point of a Periodic Hamiltonian System with Two Degrees of Freedom in the Second-order Resonance Case

This paper is concerned with a nonautonomous Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom whose Hamiltonian is a 2π-periodic function of time and analytic in a neighborhood of an equilibrium point. It is assumed that the system exhibits a secondorder resonance, i. e., the system linearized in a neighborhood of the equilibrium point has a double multiplier equal to ?1. The case of general position is considered when the monodromy matrix is not reduced to diagonal form and the equilibrium point is linearly unstable. In this case, a nonlinear analysis is required to draw conclusions on the stability (or instability) of the equilibrium point in the complete system.In this paper, a constructive algorithm for a rigorous stability analysis of the equilibrium point of the above-mentioned system is presented. This algorithm has been developed on the basis of a method proposed in [1]. The main idea of this method is to construct and normalize a symplectic map generated by the phase flow of a Hamiltonian system.It is shown that the normal form of the Hamiltonian function and the generating function of the corresponding symplectic map contain no third-degree terms. Explicit formulae are obtained which allow one to calculate the coefficients of the normal form of the Hamiltonian in terms of the coefficients of the generating function of a symplectic map.The developed algorithm is applied to solve the problem of stability of resonant rotations of a symmetric satellite.     

Conservation laws and Hamilton’s equations for systems with long-range interaction and memory

Using the fact that extremum of variation of generalized action can lead to the fractional dynamics in the case of systems with long-range interaction and long-term memory function, we consider two different applications of the action principle: generalized Noether’s theorem and Hamiltonian type equations. In the first case, we derive conservation laws in the form of continuity equations that consist of fractional time–space derivatives. Among applications of these results, we consider a chain of coupled oscillators with a power-wise memory function and power-wise interaction between oscillators. In the second case, we consider an example of fractional differential action 1-form and find the corresponding Hamiltonian type equations from the closed condition of the form.     

Stability of bound states of Hamiltonian PDEs in the degenerate cases

We consider a Hamiltonian systems which is invariant under a one-parameter unitary group and give a criterion for the stability and instability of bound states for the degenerate case. We apply our theorem to the single power nonlinear Klein–Gordon equation and the double power nonlinear Schrödinger equation.     

Generic perturbations of linear integrable Hamiltonian systems

In this paper, we investigate perturbations of linear integrable Hamiltonian systems, with the aim of establishing results in the spirit of the KAM theorem (preservation of invariant tori), the Nekhoroshev theorem (stability of the action variables for a finite but long interval of time) and Arnold diffusion (instability of the action variables). Whether the frequency of the integrable system is resonant or not, it is known that the KAM theorem does not hold true for all perturbations; when the frequency is resonant, it is the Nekhoroshev theorem that does not hold true for all perturbations. Our first result deals with the resonant case: we prove a result of instability for a generic perturbation, which implies that the KAM and the Nekhoroshev theorem do not hold true even for a generic perturbation. The case where the frequency is nonresonant is more subtle. Our second result shows that for a generic perturbation the KAM theorem holds true. Concerning the Nekhrosohev theorem, it is known that one has stability over an exponentially long (with respect to some function of ε ^?1) interval of time and that this cannot be improved for all perturbations. Our third result shows that for a generic perturbation one has stability for a doubly exponentially long interval of time. The only question left unanswered is whether one has instability for a generic perturbation (necessarily after this very long interval of time).     

Stability and instability for Gevrey quasi-convex near-integrable Hamiltonian systems

Abstract. – We prove a theorem about the stability of action variables for Gevrey quasi-convex near-integrable Hamiltonian systems and construct in that context a system with an unstable orbit whose mean speed of drift allows us to check the optimality of the stability theorem.?Our stability result generalizes those by Lochak-Neishtadt and P?schel, which give precise exponents of stability in the Nekhoroshev Theorem for the quasi-convex case, to the situation in which the Hamiltonian function is only assumed to belong to some Gevrey class instead of being real-analytic. For n degrees of freedom and Gevrey-α Hamiltonians, α ≥ 1, we prove that one can choose a = 1/2nα as an exponent for the time of stability and b = 1/2n as an exponent for the radius of confinement of the action variables, with refinements for the orbits which start close to a resonant surface (we thus recover the result for the real-analytic case by setting α = 1).?On the other hand, for α > 1, the existence of compact-supported Gevrey functions allows us to exhibit for each n ≥ 3 a sequence of Hamiltonian systems with wandering points, whose limit is a quasi-convex integrable system, and where the speed of drift is characterized by the exponent 1/2(n−2)α. This exponent is optimal for the kind of wandering points we consider, inasmuch as the initial condition is located close to a doubly-resonant surface and the stability result holds with precisely that exponent for such an initial condition. We also discuss the relationship between our example of instability, which relies on a specific construction of a perturbation of a discrete integrable system, and Arnold’s mechanism of instability, whose main features (partially hyperbolic tori, heteroclinic connections) are indeed present in our system. Manuscrit reĉu le 30 décembre 2001. In memoriam Michael R. Herman The present article is the result of a collaboration with Michael Herman, which started in October 1999. He had had the idea of studying the Nekhoroshev theory in the Gevrey category and, using a lemma of his, of producing new examples of unstable orbits for which the instability time could be compared with the distance of the system to integrability. Together we improved both the stability and instability results which he had already obtained, in view of making them match. Michael Herman’s sudden death in November 2000 prevented him from participating to the last developments and to the final writing of a work the main contributor of which he was.     

On stability of autonomous systems with internal resonance : PMM vol. 39, n 6, 1975, pp. 974–984

When investigating the stability of the trivial solution of an autonomous system of ordinary differential equations in the critical case of n pairs of pure imaginary roots an essential role can be played by the presence of integral linear dependences between the system's frequencies or, in other words, by the internal resonance. Various special cases of this problem were examined in [1–6]. Our aims are: to obtain a special (normal) form of the differential equation system with internal resonance of most general form in it; to ascertain the conditions under which the presence of internal resonance does not permit the application stability investigation methods developed for resonance-free systems; to solve the stability problem in one of the most important cases of odd-order internal resonance, generalizing the preceding investigations. In the solution of the last problem the necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the stability of the model (simplified) system. Using Chetaev's theorem we show that as a rule the instability of the original system follows from the Instability of the model system. Cases of structurally-unstable instability (^*) for which the model system does not resolve the problem of stability are outlined. The results obtained are extended, in particular, to Hamiltonian systems.     

A Frobenius Theorem on Convenient Manifolds

 A Frobenius Theorem for finite dimensional, involutive subbundles of the tangent bundle of a convenient manifold is proved. As first key applications Lie’s second fundamental theorem and Nelson’s theorem are treated in the convenient case. (Received 2 February 2001; in revised form 29 May 2001)     

Stability regions of linear canonical systems with periodic coefficients

A new definition of the index of the stability region of a canonical system of linear differential equations with periodic coefficients is proposed. A simple proof of the Gel'fand-Lidskii theorem [1] on the structure of stability regions is given and a theorem on the directional convexity of such regions is proved. It follows from this theorem, in particular, that stability regions of parametric oscillations in a system with a sign-definite Hamiltonian are convex with respect to the frequency of parametric perturbation.     

A point-wise criterion for quasi-periodic motions in the KAM theory

We consider initial value problems for nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems. We formulate a sufficient condition for each initial value to admit the quasi-periodic solution with a Diophantine frequency vector, without any nondegeneracy of the integrable part. We reconstruct the KAM theorem under Rüssmann’s nondegeneracy by the measure estimate for the set of initial values satisfying this sufficient condition. Our point-wise version is of the form analogous to the corresponding problems for the integrable case. We compare our framework with the standard KAM theorem through a brief review of the KAM theory.     

Isomorphism and Hamilton representation of some nonholonomic systems

We consider some questions connected with the Hamiltonian form of the two problems of nonholonomic mechanics: the Chaplygin ball problem and the Veselova problem. For these problems we find representations in the form of the generalized Chaplygin systems that can be integrated by the reducing multiplier method. We give a concrete algebraic form of the Poisson brackets which, together with an appropriate change of time, enable us to write down the equations of motion of the problems under study. Some generalization of these problems are considered and new ways of implementation of nonholonomic constraints are proposed. We list a series of nonholonomic systems possessing an invariant measure and sufficiently many first integrals for which the question about the Hamiltonian form remains open even after change of time. We prove a theorem on isomorphism of the dynamics of the Chaplygin ball and the motion of a body in a fluid in the Clebsch case.     

Invariant tori of locally Hamiltonian systems close to conditionally integrable systems

We study the problem of perturbations of quasiperiodic motions in the class of locally Hamiltonian systems. By using methods of the KAM-theory, we prove a theorem on the existence of invariant tori of locally Hamiltonian systems close to conditionally integrable systems. On the basis of this theorem, we investigate the bifurcation of a Cantor set of invariant tori in the case where a Liouville-integrable system is perturbed by a locally Hamiltonian vector field and, simultaneously, the symplectic structure of the phase space is deformed. __________ Translated from Ukrains’kyi Matematychnyi Zhurnal, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 71–98, January, 2007.     

Lyapunov Center Theorem of Infinite Dimensional Hamiltonian Systems

In this paper we reformulate a Lyapunov center theorem of infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems arising from PDEs. The proof is based on a modified KAM iteration for periodic case.     

A cotangent bundle slice theorem

This article concerns cotangent-lifted Lie group actions; our goal is to find local and “semi-global” normal forms for these and associated structures. Our main result is a constructive cotangent bundle slice theorem that extends the Hamiltonian slice theorem of Marle [C.-M. Marle, Modèle d'action hamiltonienne d'un groupe de Lie sur une variété symplectique, Rendiconti del Seminario Matematico, Università e Politecnico, Torino 43 (2) (1985) 227-251] and Guillemin and Sternberg [V. Guillemin, S. Sternberg, A normal form for the moment map, in: S. Sternberg (Ed.), Differential Geometric Methods in Mathematical Physics, in: Mathematical Physics Studies, vol. 6, D. Reidel, 1984]. The result applies to all proper cotangent-lifted actions, around points with fully-isotropic momentum values.We also present a “tangent-level” commuting reduction result and use it to characterise the symplectic normal space of any cotangent-lifted action. In two special cases, we arrive at splittings of the symplectic normal space. One of these cases is when the configuration isotropy group is contained in the momentum isotropy group; in this case, our splitting generalises that given for free actions by Montgomery et al. [R. Montgomery, J.E. Marsden, T.S. Ratiu, Gauged Lie-Poisson structures, Cont. Math. AMS 128 (1984) 101-114]. The other case includes all relative equilibria of simple mechanical systems. In both of these special cases, the new splitting leads to a refinement of the so-called reconstruction equations or bundle equations [J.-P. Ortega, Symmetry, reduction, and stability in Hamiltonian systems, PhD thesis, University of California, Santa Cruz, 1998; J.-P. Ortega, T.S. Ratiu, A symplectic slice theorem, Lett. Math. Phys. 59 (1) (2002) 81-93; M. Roberts, C. Wulff, J.S.W. Lamb, Hamiltonian systems near relative equilibria, J. Differential Equations 179 (2) (2002) 562-604]. We also note cotangent-bundle-specific local normal forms for symplectic reduced spaces.