Heteroclinic cycles in dynamical systems with broken spherical symmetry (Q1201109)

Let \(G\) be a compact Lie group acting on a smooth manifold \(X\), and let \(\Phi\) be a smooth \(G\)-equivariant flow on \(X\). Let \(x_ 0\in X\) be an equilibrium of \(\Phi\) with isotropy \(H\subset G\), and such that the group orbit \(Gx_ 0\) (which is isomorphic to the coset space \(G/H)\) is normally hyperbolic for \(\Phi\). Then any sufficiently small perturbation \(\Phi_ \varepsilon\) of \(\Phi\) will have an invariant manifold \(M_ \varepsilon\) near and diffeomorphic to \(M\). One of the basic results of this paper states that if \(\Phi_ \varepsilon\) is \(K\)-equivariant for some subgroup \(K\) of \(G\) then the flow of \(\Phi_ \varepsilon\) on \(M_ \varepsilon\) is \(K\)-equivariantly diffeomorphic to a \(K\)-equivariant flow on \(G/H\); a similar result holds for relative equilibria, i.e. flow invariant group orbits. The authors then study certain characteristics of such flows by essentially group theoretical means, namely using the partially ordered set of isotropy subgroups of the action of \(K\) on \(G/H\). In particular those isotropy subgroups with one-dimensional fixed point set may lead to heteroclinic cycles, as is shown in the second part of the paper where several examples are given for the case \(G=SO(3)\); also the stability of the heteroclinic cycles in these examples is investigated.