Periodic Orbits Of Hamiltonian Systems Research Articles

Combinatorics of linear stability for Hamiltonian systems in arbitrary dimension

We address the general problem of studying linear stability and bifurcations of periodic orbits for Hamiltonian systems of arbitrary degrees of freedom. We study the topology of the GIT sequence introduced by the first author and Urs Frauenfelder in [7], in arbitrary dimension. In particular, we note that the combinatorics encoding the linear stability of periodic orbits is governed by a quotient of the associahedron. Our approach gives a topological/combinatorial proof of the classical Krein–Moser theorem, and refines it for the case of symmetric orbits.

Computer assisted proof of homoclinic chaos in the spatial equilateral restricted four-body problem

We develop constructive, computer assisted arguments for proving the existence of transverse homoclinic connections for hyperbolic periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems. These arguments are applied at a number of non-perturbative parameter and energy values in the spatial equilateral circular restricted four-body problem: a six dimensional vector field. The idea is to formulate the desired connecting orbits as solutions of certain two point boundary value problems for orbit segments which originate and terminate on the local stable/unstable manifolds attached to a periodic orbit. These boundary value problems are studied via a Newton-Kantorovich argument in an appropriate Cartesian product of Banach algebras of rapidly decaying sequences of Chebyshev coefficients. Perhaps the most delicate part of the problem is controlling the boundary conditions, which must lie on the local stable/unstable manifolds of the periodic orbit. For this portion of the problem we use a parameterization method to develop Fourier-Taylor approximations equipped with mathematically rigorous a-posteriori error bounds. This requires validated computation of a finite number of Fourier-Taylor coefficients via Newton-Kantorovich arguments in appropriate Cartesian product of rapidly decaying sequences of Fourier coefficients, followed by a fixed point argument to bound the tail terms of the Taylor expansion. After some geometric considerations in the energy manifold, transversality of the connection follows as a direct consequence of the Newton-Kantorovich argument.

Symplectic splitting of Hamiltonian structures and reduced monodromy matrices

In Hamiltonian systems monodromy and reduced monodromy matrices of periodic orbits are symplectic. A symmetry is a symplectic or anti-symplectic involution which leaves the Hamiltonian invariant. A natural class to study are periodic orbits which are invariant under such involutions. Depending on whether the orbit is invariant under a symplectic or anti-symplectic symmetry, its monodromy matrix satisfies special properties. In the symplectic case, the monodromy matrix admits a symplectic decomposition, depending on the symplectic involution's fixed point set. In the anti-symplectic case, the monodromy matrix is of special symmetric form, which was constructed by Frauenfelder–Moreno. Such monodromy matrices are very beneficial in applied problems. The goal of this paper is to design a general construction behind the reduced monodromy's symplectic splitting, by using the notion of Hamiltonian manifolds, and to give a general framework for monodromy and reduced monodromy matrices of invariant periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems with symmetries. In addition, we show an application related to contact forms, especially to the spatial circular restricted three-body problem for energy level sets of contact type.

Lyapunov center theorem on rotating periodic orbits for Hamiltonian systems

We introduce the Q(s)-index ind Γ for a symplectic orthogonal group Q(s) and Q(s) invariant subset Γ of R2n and prove that indS2n−1=n. Using this fact, we study multiple rotating periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems. For an orthogonal matrix Q, a Q-rotating periodic solution z(t) has the form z(t+T)=Qz(t) for all t∈R and some constant T>0. According to the structure of Q, it can be periodic, anti-periodic, subharmonic, or just a quasi-periodic one. Under a non-resonant condition, we prove that on each energy surface near the equilibrium, the Hamiltonian system admits at least n Q-rotating periodic orbits, which can be regarded as a Lyapunov type theorem on rotating periodic orbits.

Relative Hofer–Zehnder capacity and positive symplectic homology

We study the relationship between a homological capacity $$c_{\mathrm {SH}^+}(W)$$ for Liouville domains W defined using positive symplectic homology and the existence of periodic orbits for Hamiltonian systems on W: if the positive symplectic homology of W is non-zero, then the capacity yields a finite upper bound to the $$\pi _1$$ -sensitive Hofer–Zehnder capacity of W relative to its skeleton and a certain class of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of W has infinitely many non-trivial contractible periodic points. En passant, we give an upper bound for the spectral capacity of W in terms of the homological capacity $$c_{\mathrm {SH}}(W)$$ defined using the full symplectic homology. Applications of these statements to cotangent bundles are discussed and use a result by Abbondandolo and Mazzucchelli in the appendix, where the monotonicity of systoles of convex Riemannian two-spheres in $${\mathbb {R}}^3$$ is proved.

The Generalization of the Periodic Orbit Dividing Surface for Hamiltonian Systems with Three or More Degrees of Freedom – II

We develop a method for the construction of a dividing surface using periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems with three or more degrees-of-freedom that is an alternative to the method presented in [ Katsanikas & Wiggins, 2021 ]. Similar to that method, for an [Formula: see text] degrees-of-freedom Hamiltonian system, we extend a one-dimensional object (the periodic orbit) to a [Formula: see text] dimensional geometrical object in the energy surface of a [Formula: see text] dimensional space that has the desired properties for a dividing surface. The advantage of this new method is that it avoids the computation of the normally hyperbolic invariant manifold (NHIM) (as the first method did) and it is easier to numerically implement than the first method of constructing periodic orbit dividing surfaces. Moreover, this method has less strict required conditions than the first method for constructing periodic orbit dividing surfaces. We apply the new method to a benchmark example of a Hamiltonian system with three degrees-of-freedom for which we are able to investigate the structure of the dividing surface in detail. We also compare the periodic orbit dividing surfaces constructed in this way with the dividing surfaces that are constructed starting with a NHIM. We show that these periodic orbit dividing surfaces are subsets of the dividing surfaces that are constructed from the NHIM.

Floer homology in the cotangent bundle of a closed Finsler manifold and noncontractible periodic orbits

We show that the existence of noncontractible periodic orbits for compactly supported time-dependent Hamiltonian on the disk cotangent bundle of a Finsler manifold provided that the Hamiltonian is sufficiently large over the zero section. We generalize the Biran–Polterovich–Salamon capacities and earlier constructions of Weber (2006 Duke Math. J. 133 527–568) and other authors Biran et al (2003 Duke Math. J. 119 65–118) to the Finsler setting. We then obtain a number of applications including: (1) generalizing the main theorem of Xue (2017 J. Symplectic Geom. 15 905–936) to the Lie group setting, (2) preservation of minimal Finsler length of closed geodesics in any given free homotopy class by symplectomorphisms, (3) existence of periodic orbits for Hamiltonian systems separating two Lagrangian submanifolds, (4) existence of periodic orbits for Hamiltonians on noncompact domains, (5) existence of periodic orbits for Lorentzian Hamiltonian in higher dimensional case, (6) partial solution to a conjecture of Kawasaki (2016 Heavy subsets and non-contractible trajectories (arXiv:1606.01964)), (7) results on squeezing/nonsqueezing theorem on torus cotangent bundles, etc.

On the continuation of degenerate periodic orbits via normal form: full dimensional resonant tori

We reconsider the classical problem of the continuation of degenerate periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems. In particular we focus on periodic orbits that arise from the breaking of a completely resonant maximal torus. We here propose a suitable normal form construction that allows to identify and approximate the periodic orbits which survive to the breaking of the resonant torus. Our algorithm allows to treat the continuation of approximate orbits which are at leading order degenerate, hence not covered by classical averaging methods. We discuss possible future extensions and applications to localized periodic orbits in chains of weakly coupled oscillators.

Index theory for heteroclinic orbits of Hamiltonian systems

Index theory revealed its outstanding role in the study of periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems and the dynamical consequences of this theory are enormous. Although the index theory in the periodic case is well-established, very few results are known in the case of homoclinic orbits of Hamiltonian systems. Moreover, to the authors’ knowledge, no results have been yet proved in the case of heteroclinic and halfclinic (i.e. parametrized by a half-line) orbits. Motivated by the importance played by these motions in understanding several challenging problems in Classical Mechanics, we develop a new index theory and we prove at once a general spectral flow formula for heteroclinic, homoclinic and halfclinic trajectories. Finally we show how this index theory can be used to recover all the (classical) existing results on orbits parametrized by bounded intervals.

Rigorous KAM results around arbitrary periodic orbits for Hamiltonian systems

We set up a methodology for computer assisted proofs of the existence and the KAM stability of an arbitrary periodic orbit for Hamiltonian systems. We give two examples of application for systems with two and three degrees of freedom. The first example verifies the existence of tiny elliptic islands inside large chaotic domains for a quartic potential. In the 3-body problem we prove the KAM stability of the well-known figure eight orbit and two selected orbits of the so called family of rotating eights. Some additional theoretical and numerical information is also given for the dynamics of both examples.

Existence of noncontractible periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems separating two Lagrangian tori on $T^{*} \mathbb{T}^n$ with application to nonconvex systems

Existence of noncontractible periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems separating two Lagrangian tori on $T^{*} \mathbb{T}^n$ with application to nonconvex systems

Gutzwiller’s semiclassical trace formula and Maslov-type index theory for symplectic paths

Gutzwiller’s famous semiclassical trace formula plays an important role in theoretical and experimental quantum mechanics with tremendous success. We review the physical derivation of this deep periodic orbit theory in terms of the phase space formulation with a view toward the Hamiltonian dynamical systems. The Maslov phase appearing in the trace formula is clarified by Meinrenken as Conley–Zehnder index for periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems. We also survey and compare various versions of Maslov indices to establish this fact. A refinement and improvement to Conley–Zehnder’s index theory in which we will recall all essential ingredients is the Maslov-type index theory for symplectic paths developed by Long and his collaborators. It would shed new light on the computations and understandings of the semiclassical trace formula. The insights in Gutzwiller’s work also seems plausible for the studies of Hamiltonian systems.

Periodic Orbits in Hamiltonian Systems with Involutory Symmetries

We study the existence of families of periodic solutions in a neighbourhood of a symmetric equilibrium point in two classes of Hamiltonian systems with involutory symmetry. In both classes, the involution reverses the sign of the Hamiltonian function, and the system is in 1:-1 resonance. In the first class we study a Hamiltonian system with a reversing involution R acting symplectically. We first recover a result of Buzzi and Lamb showing that the equilibrium point is contained in a three dimensional conical subspace which consists of a two parameter family of periodic solutions with symmetry R, and furthermore that there may or may not exist two families of non-symmetric periodic solutions, depending on the coefficients of the Hamiltonian (correcting a minor error in their paper). In the second problem we study an equivariant Hamiltonian system with a symmetry S that acts anti-symplectically. Generically, there is no S-symmetric solution in a neighbourhood of the equilibrium point. Moreover, we prove the existence of at least 2 and at most 12 families of non-symmetric periodic solutions. We conclude with a brief study of systems with both forms of symmetry, showing they have very similar structure to the system with symmetry R.

Efficient computational approaches to obtain periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems: application to the motion of a lunar orbiter

In this paper, we study the problem of computing periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems providing large families of such orbits. Periodic orbits constitute one of the most important invariants of a system, and this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of two efficient computational approaches for Hamiltonian systems. First, a new version of the grid search method, applied to problems with three degrees of freedom, has been considered to find, systematically, symmetric periodic orbits. To obtain non-symmetric periodic orbits, we use a modification of an optimization method based on an evolutionary strategy. Both methods require a great computational effort to find a big number of periodic orbits, and we apply parallelization tools to reduce the CPU time. Finally, we present a strategy to provide initial conditions of the periodic orbits with arbitrary precision. We apply all these algorithms to the problem of the motion of the lunar orbiter referred to the rotating reference frame of the Moon. The periodic orbits of this problem are very useful from the space engineering point of view because they provide low-cost orbits.

Systematic Computer Assisted Proofs of periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems

The numerical study of Dynamical Systems leads to obtain invariant objects of the systems such as periodic orbits, invariant tori, attractors and so on, that helps to the global understanding of the problem. In this paper we focus on the rigorous computation of periodic orbits and their distribution on the phase space, which configures the so called skeleton of the system. We use Computer Assisted Proof techniques to make a rigorous proof of the existence and the stability of families of periodic orbits in two-degrees of freedom Hamiltonian systems, which provide rigorous skeletons of periodic orbits. To that goal we show how to prove the existence and stability of a huge set of discrete initial conditions of periodic orbits, and later, how to prove the existence and stability of continuous families of periodic orbits. We illustrate the approach with two paradigmatic problems: the Hénon–Heiles Hamiltonian and the Diamagnetic Kepler problem.

Periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems: Applications to perturbed Kepler problems

We provide for a class of Hamiltonian systems in the action–angle variables sufficient conditions for showing the existence of periodic orbits. We expand this result to the study of the existence of periodic orbits of perturbed spatial Keplerian Hamiltonians with axial symmetry. Finally, we apply these general results for finding periodic orbits of the Matese–Whitman Hamiltonian, of the spatial anisotropic Hamiltonian and of the spatial generalized van der Waals Hamiltonian.

Bifurcation of critical points for continuous families of C 2 functionals of Fredholm type

Given a continuous family of C 2 functionals of Fredholm type, we show that the nonvanishing of the spectral flow for the family of Hessians along a known (trivial) branch of critical points not only entails bifurcation of nontrivial critical points but also allows to estimate the number of bifurcation points along the branch. We use this result for several parameter bifurcation, estimating the number of connected components of the complement of the set of bifurcation points in the parameter space and apply our results to bifurcation of periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems. By means of a comparison principle for the spectral flow, we obtain lower bounds for the number of bifurcation points of periodic orbits on a given interval in terms of the coefficients of the linearization.

Revealing the evolution, the stability, and the escapes of families of resonant periodic orbits in Hamiltonian systems

We investigate the evolution of families of periodic orbits in a bisymmetrical potential made up of a two-dimensional harmonic oscillator with only one quartic perturbing term, in a number of resonant cases. Our main objective is to compute sufficiently and accurately the position and the period of the periodic orbits. For the derivation of the above quantities (position and period) we deploy in each resonance case semi-numerical methods. The comparison of our semi-numerical results with those obtained by the numerical integration of the equations of motion indicates that, in every case the relative error is always less than 1% and therefore, the agreement is more than sufficient. Thus, we claim that semi-numerical methods are very effective tools for computing periodic orbits. We also study in detail, the case when the energy of the orbits is larger than the escape energy. In this case, the periodic orbits in almost all resonance families become unstable and eventually escape from the system. Our target is to calculate the escape period and the escape position of the periodic orbits and also monitor their evolution with respect to the value of the energy.

Periodic orbits and non-integrability in a cosmological scalar field

We apply the averaging theory of first order to study the periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems describing a universe filled with a scalar field which possesses three parameters. The main results are the following. First, we provide sufficient conditions on the parameters of these cosmological model, which guarantee that at any positive or negative Hamiltonian level, the Hamiltonian system has periodic orbits, the number of such periodic orbits and their stability change with the values of the parameters. These periodic orbits live in the whole phase space in a continuous family of periodic orbits parameterized by the Hamiltonian level. Second, under convenient assumptions we show the non-integrability of these cosmological systems in the sense of Liouville–Arnol'd, proving that there cannot exist any second first integral of class \documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\begin{document}$\mathcal {C}^1$\end{document}C1. It is important to mention that the tools (i.e., the averaging theory for studying the existence of periodic orbits and their kind of stability, and the multipliers of these periodic orbits for studying the integrability of the Hamiltonian system) used here for proving our results on the cosmological scalar field can be applied to Hamiltonian systems with an arbitrary number of degrees of freedom.

On the periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems

We show how to apply to Hamiltonian differential systems recent results for studying the periodic orbits of a differential system using the averaging theory. We have chosen two classical integrable Hamiltonian systems, one with the Hooke potential and the other with the Kepler potential, and we study the periodic orbits which bifurcate from the periodic orbits of these integrable systems, first perturbing the Hooke Hamiltonian with a nonautonomous potential, and second perturbing the Kepler problem with an autonomous potential.