On the Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcations in the 3D Hénon-Heiles family (Q700807)

This paper is devoted to the study of an axially symmetric perturbed harmonic oscillator, described from an Hamiltonian related to a Hénon-Heiles family with three degrees of freedom, and nonlinear terms having a degree not higher than three. Some bifurcations generated by this model are analyzed when a parameter, adjusting the relative strength of the two terms in the cubic potential, varies. The 2D Hénon-Heiles family is embedded into the considered Hamiltonian. Being axially symmetric, the present problem may reduced to two degrees of freedom, and a normal form may define again an integrable approximation. Exceptional values of the parameter imply higher-order normal forms for the bifurcation study. Here the linear approximation is not always that of a typical Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation, due to the fact that the eigenvalues vanish at the bifurcation. A careful geometric analysis permits to show the presence of Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcations. It implicates the definition of an appropriately chosen normalized Hamiltonian and a twice reduced phase space. The bifurcations of the normal form for special values of the parameter are related to a singularity of this reduced space. One of the parameter values considered here does not permit to conclude whether the bifurcation occurs for this value, or near this value.