Dynamical systems with a prescribed globally bp-attracting set and applications to conservative dynamics (Q2306878)

The author considers an inverse problem in the theory of dynamical systems. The general question is whether one can find a dynamical system with a prescribed attractor. More specifically, how can one construct a dynamical system that admits the regular part of an arbitrary fixed closed subset \(C\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) as an invariant set that attracts every bounded positive orbit of the dynamical system? Such sets are called bp-attracting sets. First the author reviews prior work with a co-author that gives an explicit method for constructing a class of smooth vector fields defined on a smooth Riemannian manifold that admit a set of first integrals provided a priori, and which also dissipate a set of scalar quantities with specified dissipation rates (also selected a priori). The author then uses these results to provide an explicit method for constructing a dynamical system with an a priori defined globally bp-attracting set. All that is required in order to construct the vector field associated with the given closed proper subset of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is that one knows a representation of this set as the level set of some smooth function. An application of these results leads to the construction of perturbations of conservative dynamical systems that admit an a priori prescribed leaf-wise globally bp-attracting set. The final section of the paper illustrates these results using the completely integrable case of the Rössler system.