On interrelations between divergence-free and Hamiltonian dynamics

Abstract

A mathematically correct description is presented on the interrelations between the dynamics of divergence free vector fields on an oriented 3-dimensional manifold M and the dynamics of Hamiltonian systems. It is shown that for a given divergence free vector field X with a global cross-section there exist some 4-dimensional symplectic manifold M̃⊃M and a smooth Hamilton function H:M̃→R such that for some c∈R one gets M={H=c} and the Hamiltonian vector field XH restricted on this level coincides with X. For divergence free vector fields with singular points such an extension is impossible but the existence of local cross-section allows one to reduce the dynamics to the study of symplectic diffeomorphisms in some sub-domains of M. We also consider the case of a divergence free vector field X with a smooth integral having only finite number of critical levels. It is shown that such a noncritical level is always a 2-torus and restriction of X on it possesses a smooth invariant 2-form. The linearization of the flow on such a torus (i.e. the reduction to the constant vector field) is not always possible in contrast to the case of an integrable Hamiltonian system but in the analytic case (M and X are real analytic), due to the Kolmogorov theorem, such a linearization is possible for tori with Diophantine rotation numbers.