Equivariant bifurcation theory and symmetry breaking (Q908563)

A study is made of the failure of the Maximal Isotropy Subgroup Conjecture (MISC) for the Weyl group series \(W(D_ k)\). A general genericity and stability theorem is proved for bifurcation diagrams in equivariant bifurcation theory. Roughly speaking the result says that generically bifurcation points are isolated and bifurcation diagrams are stable under perturbation. A concept of determinacy is introduced for the study of symmetry breaking. The main result states that bifurcation problems defined on absolutely irreducible G-representations are generically finitely determined. The degree of determinacy depends only on the group and representation. Some methods from topological degree theory are used to prove a general result that gives sufficient conditions on the geometry of the orbit strata of a G-representation that imply that the MISC fails. One applies this result to obtain many new examples where the MISC fails. The invariant sphere theorem is proved. This result may be regarded as an extension of the Hopf and pitchfork bifurcations to supercritical bifurcations on general absolutely irreducible G-representations. All basic definitions and notations as well as a selection of elementary facts about certain finite reflection groups are recalled. More than 40 ref.