Optimal stability and instability results for a class of nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems (Q2568672)

This paper introduces a variational approach as a means of establishing Arnold diffusion for a Hamiltonian system. In particular, the authors consider the nearly integrable, nonisochronous Hamiltonian system described by \[ H\mu = I2/2 + p2/2 + (\cos q - 1) + \mu f (I, p, \phi, q, t), \] where \((\phi, q, t)\) in \(T^d\times T^l\times T^l\) are angle variables, \((I, p)\) in \(\mathbb{R}^d\times\mathbb{R}^l\) are action variables, and \(\mu\) is a small nonnegative parameter. The perturbation \(f\) is assumed to be a trigonometric polynomial in \(\phi\) and \(t\). This system represents \(d\) rotators weakly coupled to a pendulum via a small time dependent perturbation.The unperturbed \((\mu = 0)\) system is completely integrable and the energy of each of the rotators is a constant of the motion. The usual approach to proving the existence of Arnold diffusion would be to use the continuous family of \(d\)--dimensional partially hyperbolic invariant tori \(T_{\omega}\) admitted by the unperturbed system and construct transition chains of perturbed partially hyperbolic tori \(T_{\omega}^{\mu}\) close to \(T_{\omega}\) and connected to one another by heteroclinic orbits. The authors instead use a variational method that directly establishes the existence of a drifting orbit as a local minimum of an action functional; they do so by relying on a finite-dimensional reduction of Lyapunov-Schmidt type. This approach establishes a diffusion time \(T_d = O(1/\mu)\, |\log \mu|\). Formal proofs of the results of this paper are provided in a separate report.