Local and semi-local bifurcations in Hamiltonian dynamical systems. Results and examples (Q859478)

The writing of this book was motivated by the author's awareness of few results on the bifurcations of conservative systems prior to his paper [J. Differ. Equations 142, No.~2, 305--370 (1998; Zbl 0936.37028)], this compared to the rich theory of torus bifurcations in dissipative dynamical systems. Indeed due to the fact that no external parameters are necessary, this lack of a bifurcation theory for invariant tori in Hamiltonian systems may appear surprising. The book intends to fill this gap. In presence of sufficiently many symmetries, as a first step the theory of the relatively simple (but exceptional) case of integrable Hamiltonian systems, which can be reduced to bifurcations of equilibria, is systematically developed. This is made considering the different families of equilibria from which the bifurcation scenario of invariant tori can be effortlessly reconstituted. It is known that an integrable system can be taken as starting point for studying Hamiltonian perturbations far from integrability. Then a classical method is to find an integrable approximation, e.g. given by normalization. In this framework of nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems, KAM theory is used to solve this problem. Here elliptic and hyperbolic tori determine the distribution of maximal invariant tori, and they themselves form \(n\)-parameter families. The consequence is that torus bifurcations of high codimension may be identified in a single given Hamiltonian system, and this without the need for untypical conditions, or external parameters. This text first deals with the integrable case, in which symmetries allow reduction to bifurcating equilibria, and progressively considers the nonintegrable situation, for which smooth parametrizations must be replaced by Cantor sets. Planar singularities and their versal unfoldings constitute an important help to explain the corresponding underlying dynamics. The book is organized with five chapters: 1. Introduction. 2. Bifurcations of Equilibria. 3.~Bifurcations of Periodic Orbits. 4. Bifurcations of Invariant Tori. 5. Perturbations of Ramified Torus Bundles. They are followed by four annexes presenting some basic points, which might be ignored by a reader, and a very useful glossary. It is worth noting that the particular case of nonlinear conservative systems with two degrees of freedom remains a source of open problems. Some of them are described in Chapter 3 of the volume 809 (1980) of ``Lecture Notes in Mathematics'', which deals numerically with bifurcations using the associated two-dimensional conservative map of the ODE. From the Hanssmann theory it would have been interesting to have an analysis of some situations presented in this volume, for example among them ``external'', ``internal'', and ``mixed cycles'' in presence of bounded nonlinearities, and their related invariant tori bifurcations.