Relative equilibria of Lagrangian systems with symmetry (Q931827)

The authors consider Lagrangians which are arbitrary apart from being subject to certain regularity conditions, with symmetry groups which are also arbitrary except for being required to act freely and properly on the space. The authors prove a general criterion for the existence of relative equilibria: a relative equilibrium is a critical point of the restriction of the energy to a level set of the momentum. The authors also discuss a relation betweeen this result and a different criterion for relative equilibria due to \textit{D. Lewis} [J. Dyn. Differ. Equations 4, No. 1, 1--41 (1992; Zbl 0747.58030)]. Two special cases are considered in detail, namely the case where the configuration space is a Lie group, and the case of a simple mechanical system in the context of the so-called Saari conjecture. One of the purposes of this paper is to provide a single framework for the variety of results on the existence of relative equilibria, both under general and under particular circumstances. The basic facts about group actions are discussed in Section 2. Section 3 is devoted to explaining the Lagrangian theory. The main result is proved in Section 4. In Section 5, the authors derive an alternative criterion for the existence of relative equilibria due to Lewis, using a proper formulation. Some applications are discussed in Section 6.