Breathing modes, quartic nonlinearities and effective resonant systems (Q2176563)

A breathing mode \(B\) is a function on the phase space of a Hamiltonian dynamical system such that \(\{H,B\}=\imath B\), where \(\imath=\sqrt{-1}\), \(H\) is the Hamiltonian and \(\{\cdot,\cdot\}\) is the Poisson bracket on the underlying set of observables. The previous condition implies that the evolution of \(B\) along the dynamical flow is periodic, with the same period along each of the integral curves defined by \(H\). The existence of breathing modes imposes non-trivial constraints on the Hamiltonian system and it implies the existence of (dynamical) symmetries, which, although they do not commute with the evolution of the system, produce only simple changes in its trajectories. Breathing modes appear in solid state physics (in the theory of Bose-Einstein condensate) and in the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems in anti de-Sitter space-times. The paper contains a careful analysis of the consequences of the presence of breathing modes for systems whose Hamiltonian is a small perturbation of a quadratic one by a quartic term. More precisely, it is investigated in details the case of a Hamiltonian of the type \(H=H_0+gH_1\), endowed with breathing modes of the same form, i.e., \(B=B_0+gB_1\), where \(H_0,B_0\) are quadratic, \(H_1\) is quartic and \(g\ll 1\). In this case, in the limit \(g\rightarrow 0\), one recovers a linear Hamiltonian system with symmetries linearly realized. The paper in divided in five sections. In the first two sections the reader will find a nice introduction to the general theory of breathing modes; in the third section the author discusses the case of a quadratic Hamiltonian, while Section four aims to discuss the case of a weakly nonlinear Hamiltonian system, i.e., \(H=H_0+g H_1\), endowed with a breathing mode \(B=B_0+g B_1\) (adopting the notation introduced in the previous paragraph). In Section five the reader will find a final discussion about physical applications of the theory previously presented.