Integrable deformations, bi-Hamiltonian structures and nonintegrability of a generalized Rikitake system

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate a generalized Rikitake system from the integrability point of view. For the integrable case, we derive a family of integrable deformations of the generalized Rikitake system by altering its constants of motion, and give two classes of Hamilton–Poisson structures which implies these integrable deformations, including the generalized Rikitake system, are bi-Hamiltonian and have infinitely many Hamilton–Poisson realizations. By analyzing properties of the differential Galois groups of normal variational equations (NVEs) along certain particular solution, we show that the generalized Rikitake system is not rationally integrable in an extended Liouville sense for almost all parameter values, which is in accord with the fact that this system admits chaotic behaviors for a large range of its parameters. The non-existence of analytic first integrals are also discussed.