Geodesic rays, Busemann functions and monotone twist maps (Q1315030)

The action-minimizing half-orbits of an area-preserving monotone twist map of an annulus are studied. It is proved that these so-called rays are always asymptotic to action-minimizing orbits. By analogy with the geometry of the geodesics on a Riemannian 2-torus a Busemann function for every ray is defined. This concept is used to prove that the minimal average action \(A(\alpha)\) is differentiable at irrational rotation numbers \(\alpha\) while it is generically non-differentiable at rational rotation numbers. Applications of received results in the geometric framework are considered.