Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theory
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(Redirected from KAM theory)
Author: Dr. Luigi Chierchia, Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita' di Roma Tre
Author: Dr. John N. Mather, Math. Dept., Princeton University, N.J.
Kolmogorov -Arnold-Moser (KAM) theory deals with persistence, under perturbation, of quasi-periodic motions in Hamiltonian dynamical systems.
An important example is given by the dynamics of nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems. In general, the phase space of a completely integrable Hamiltonian system of
degrees of freedom is foliated by invariant
-dimensional tori (possibly of different topology). KAM theory shows that, under suitable regularity and non-degeneracy assumptions, most (in measure theoretic sense) of such tori persist (slightly deformed) under small Hamiltonian perturbations. The union of persistent
-dimensional tori (Kolmogorov set) tend to fill the whole phase space as the strength of the perturbation is decreased.
The major technical problem arising in this context is due to the appearance of resonances and of small divisors in the associated formal perturbation series.
Contents |
Classical KAM theory
The main objects studied in KAM theory are
-dimensional embedded tori
invariant for a Hamiltonian flow
, where
denotes the time variable and
is a (smooth enough or analytic) Hamiltonian function depending on
symplectic (or canonical) variables
and
defined on the phase space
. This means that if
, then
for any
,
denoting the solution of the (standard) Hamilton equations
- (1)
here dot represents time derivative, while
denotes the gradient with respect to the
variables.
- A
-dimensional (embedded and smooth or analytic) invariant torus for
, with
, is called a KAM torus if:
- The flow
on
is conjugated to a linear translation
, where
belongs to the standard
-dimensional torus
; the vector
is called the frequency vector;
- the frequency vector
is rationally independent and is "badly" approximated by rationals: typically
is assumed to be Diophantine, namely, :(2)
From measure theory, it follows that the set of Diophantine vectors in
is of full Lebesgue measure.
- The flow
.
Note that the excluded case
would correspond to periodic trajectories of period
. On the other hand, the case
corresponding to maximal KAM tori is particularly relevant.
Kolmogorov's Normal forms and Kolmogorov's Theorem
Let
be a real-analytic Hamiltonian on
(with
an open region in
) and assume that
is a maximal KAM torus for
and that it is a (Lagrangian) graph over the angle variables. Then there exists a symplectic transformation
(i.e., a diffeomorphism preserving the canonical 2-form
) transforming
in Kolmogorov's normal form:
- (3)
for some number
(the energy level of the KAM torus), some Diophantine frequency vector
and
a function vanishing together with its first
-derivatives at
. In the "new" variables
, the
-torus
is obviously a KAM torus for the transformed Hamiltonian
.
One says that the Kolmogorov's normal form
in (3) is non-degenerate if the Hessian matrix (with respect to
) of the average of
over
is an invertible matrix.
Kolmogorov's Theorem (Kolmogorov, 1954) Let
be a real-analytic non-degenerate Kolmogorov's normal form and let
be a real-analytic function in a neighborhood of
. Then, there exists
and for any
a real-analytic symplectic transformation
, close to the identity, such that, if
denotes the perturbed Hamiltonian
, then
is a non-degenerate Kolmogorov's normal form with the same frequency vector of
.
Thus, in particular,
is a (real-analytic, non-degerate) KAM torus for
and such a torus is
-close to
.
Nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems
A nearly-integrable Hamiltonian system is a Hamiltonian system governed by a Hamiltonian function of the form
with
(action variables) varying in a domain
and
(angle variables) varying in the standard
-dimensional torus
.
For
, Equations (1) give
and
,
hence
constant
and
(mod
),
with
. Thus the torus
is invariant for the flow
and if
is Diophantine and
is invertible, then such a torus is a non-degenerate KAM torus for
. Since
can be expanded by Taylor's formula as
,
from Kolmogorov's Theorem follows that
for
small enough such tori persist, giving rise to non-degenerate KAM tori for
.
Moser's differentiable version
J.K. Moser (followed by H. Rüssmann, J. Pöschel and others) showed that the real-analyticity assumption is not necessary. Indeed, Kolmogorov's Theorem holds under the milder assumption that
is a
differentiable function with
(meaning that
is of class
and that the derivatives of order
are Hölder continuous).
Originally (Moser, 1962), Moser's work focused on
(exact symplectic) perturbations of integrable twist mappings of the annulus (the most famous example being the so-called standard map). In this case, maximal KAM tori correspond to homotopically non-trivial curves intersecting each radius in only one point. The number of derivatives were reduced to 5 by H. Rüssmann (Rüssmann, 1970) and M. Herman (Herman, 1983) showed that the theorem is valid for
perturbation with
but false for
.
Small divisors and classical KAM techniques
KAM techniques (i.e., the analytical tools used to prove statements in KAM theory) constitute the hard core of KAM theory and play a major role in applications, extensions and, in general, in the full comprehension of the results. The main technical problem is related to the appearance of small divisors in the Fourier series of perturbative expansions (averaging methods, series expansions of quasi-periodic motions, etc.).
Small divisors are expressions of the form
with
an integer vector, which usually is related to Fourier modes associated to the perturbing function, and
a "frequency vector", often depending upon the slow (action) variables; such expressions appear in the denominator of (formal) Fourier expansions of the object one aims at construct (e.g., a generating function or the formal expansion of a quasi-periodic solution). Since, as
varies,
may became arbitrarly small for any vector
, the convergence of the perturbative series is in doubt.
Kolmogorov's scheme
Two main ideas are needed to overcome the convergence problems related to the appearance of small divisors: (i) keep fixed the frequency of the motion; (ii) use a Newton quadratic methods (the name comes form the elementary tangent Newton's method for finding roots of real functions) to control the growth of the remainder terms. More specifically, Kolmogorov (Kolmogorov, 1954) constructs a (real-analytic), near-to-the-identity, symplectic transformation
transforming a Hamiltonian of the the form
, with
a non-degenerate Kolmogorov normal form as in (3), into a new Hamiltonian of the form
- (4)
with
again in non-degenerate Kolmogorov's normal form with the same frequency vector of
; once this is achieved, one can iterate the construction obtaining a sequence of symplectic transformations
so that
with
non-degenerate Kolmogorov's normal form with fixed frequency vector and
a real-analytic perturbation. Indeed, the equations leading to the determination of the symplectic transformation
may be (essentially uniquely) solved and admits as generating function a (real-analytic) function of the form
where,
is a constant vector, while
and
are, respectively, a scalar and a vector-valued multi-periodic functions with vanishing average over
; in the denominators of the Fourier expansion of
and
(and in the determination of the constant
) there appear the small divisors
, which are controlled through the Diophantine inequality (2).
The super exponential decrease of
, for small
, allows to beat the growth of the norm (due to the small divisors) of the new perturbing functions
: in the limit as
,
converges to a real-analytic symplectic transformation
,
, with
a real-analytic non-degenerate Kolmogorov's normal form with frequency
.
Arnold's scheme
Arnold (who was the first to provide a detailed proof of Kolmogorov's Theorem) followed a different approach (Arnold 1963a), which, however, shared with Kolmogorov's scheme the two main ingredients. Arnold considers a nearly-integrable Hamiltonian system of the form
real analytic in a complex neighborhood
of
where
is such that
is Diophantine and
is invertible on
; one then constructs a near-to-the-identity symplectic transformation
transforming
as in (4) with
(i.e., integrable); the new domain
is a complex neighborhood of
contained in
, and with the property that
(same frequency) and
is invertible on
. This is not difficult to achieve, by classical averaging theory, through a symplectic transformation associated to a near-to-identity generating function
, with
a trigonometric polynomial in
having degree
depending on
(
can be chosen as
and it is related to a cut-off of the high Fourier modes of the perturbation).
The iteration leads to a sequence of Hamiltonians
closer and closer to integrable but in shrinking domains
: in the limit the projection onto the action variables of
is a single point
. Nevertheless, one can show that, pulling back the dynamics, to
there corresponds a Diophantine KAM torus for the original Hamiltonian
.
Moser's differentiable case
In dealing with a finitely differentiable perturbation
there appears an extra technical problem. Namely, due to the presence of the small divisors, during the iteration scheme one looses derivatives at each step.
Moser (inspired by the famous work by J. Nash on the
imbedding of Riemannian manifolds) introduces a smoothing technique (via convolutions), which re-stores at each step of the Newton iteration a certain number of derivatives. The super-exponential convergence of the Newton scheme is fast enough to compensate also for the smoothing leading to a convergent algorithm. Later, Moser developed different and sharper methods, using, e.g., a characterization of differentiable functions through approximations by real-analytic ones in smaller and smaller complex neighborhoods of real domains. Thus, by a quantitative approximation of differentiable functions by means of real-analytic functions, one can construct for the analytic approximations real-analytic, invariant tori; such approximate solutions are analytic in shrinking domains and in the limit converge to differentiable solutions of the original problem.
Remarks
- The analytical tools needed in KAM proofs are classical and involve, in particular:
- exponential decay of Fourier coefficients of analytic functions
- quantitative versions of the classical implicit function theorem in real-analytic settings
- Cauchy estimates, which allow to bound the sup-norm of derivatives of analytic functions in smaller domains in term of the sup-norm of the function divided by the loss of the extension of the domain
- quantitative analysis of the PDE
where
is real-analytic function on
with vanishing average and
a Diophantine vector
- In a nearly-integrable analytic Hamiltonian system with
degrees of freedom, the Kolmogorov's set, i.e., the union of the persistent KAM tori, fills locally a region in phase space of density
, as
goes to zero. While the dynamics on the Kolmogorov's set trivializes (being conjugated to a linear quasi-periodic translation on
with a Diophantine frequency vector), in the complement of the Kolmogorov's set (which asymptotically represents a small region of measure
), the dynamics can be very complicated, exhibiting, in many cases, "random motions" or "Arnold Diffusion".
- In nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems, Kolmogorov's non-degeneracy condition is equivalent to require that
, which, in turn, means that the frequency map
is a local diffeomorphism in a neighborhood of
.
- The global geometry of the Kolmogorov's set is simple: the fibers of the set (i.e., the individual KAM tori) are level sets of a global
symplectic map
as the
vector
varies in a Cantor-like
-disk of almost full density. This phenomenon may be interpreted by saying that nearly-integrable Hamiltonian systems are integrable over Cantor sets (Pöschel, 1982,Chierchia and Gallavotti, 1982).
- The Kolmogorov symplectic map
and the Kolmogorov's normal form
(see above) depend analytically upon the perturbative parameter
. Therefore quasi-periodic trajectories taking place on KAM tori admit a convergent series expansions in
. This fact, which was first observed by Moser (1967), solves a long standing problem about the convergence of Lindstedt series (i.e.,
-power series expansions of formal quasi-periodic solution with Diophantine frequencies). Direct proofs, based upon delicate and lengthy combinatorial arguments, of the convergence of Linsdstedt series (i.e., proofs avoiding KAM fast iteration methods) were found in the late 1980's (H. Eliasson) and early 1990's (G. Gallavotti, L. Chierchia and C. Falcolini).
Applications and extensions
Iso-energetic tori and perpetual stability
The tori found through Kolmogorov's (or Arnold's) scheme have, as
varies, same frequencies but different energies. Arnold noticed that, instead, one could keep fixed the ratios of the frequencies and the energy so as to analytically continue on a fixed energy surface KAM tori. The analytical non-degeneracy condition to achieve this (in the nearly-integrable setting) is that
(this is a
matrix having as last column and as last row the gradient of
and a 0).
Iso-energetic non-degeneracy leads, in low dimensional nearly-integrable systems, to perpetual stability: an energy level for a system with two degrees of freedom is a tri-dimensional surface and, for small perturbation, a iso-energetically non-degenerate, nearly-integrable systems admits a positive measure set of invarian two dimesional tori (which are graphs over the angle variables); thus such tori separate the energy level and a generic trajectory either lie on an invariant torus or is trapped among two of them. In both cases no escape is possible and the action variable stay forever close to its initial value ("perpetual stability").
Properly degenerate KAM theory
One of the original motivation for KAM theory was to find relatively bounded motions in the planetary many body problem (i.e., a mechanical system formed by
point-masses, one of which is much larger than the other, interacting only through gravity).
It is a classical fact that such a system may be seen as a perturbation of
decoupled two-body systems (star-planet). However, the limiting unperturbed Hamiltonian is highly degenerate since does not depend on the full set of action variables (proper degeneracy). In general, perturbations of properly degenerate Hamiltonian systems may admit no KAM tori, however under suitable assumptions on the (average over the fast angles of the) perturbation KAM tori do exist:
Theorem (Arnold, 1963b) Let
and
be couples of conjugate symplectic variables and let the Hamiltonian
be real-analytic in a neighborhood of
. Denote by
the secular perturbation (i.e., the average over the fast angles
of
)
and by
the vector with components
(for
). Assume that
. Assume also that the secular perturbation has an elliptic equilibrium:
with
. Then, if
is small enough, in a neighborhood of
there exists a positive measure set of initial data whose evolution lies on
-dimensional tori close to
for a suitable
.
This theorem, or refinements of it, is at the basis of the application of KAM theory to the planetary many problem; a complete proof of such result, however, has been published only in 2004 and is due to M. Herman and J. Fejóz.
Weaker non-degeneracies
To extend the validity of KAM theory it is important to weaken the non-degeneracy conditions.
As mentioned above, Kolmogorov's non-degeneracy for nearly-integrable systems with Hamitlonian
means that the frequency map
is a local diffeomorphism. Rüssmann pointed out (Rüssmann, 1989) that it is sufficient (and in a suitable sense also necessary) to assume that the frequency map
does not lie in any hyperplane, (more precisely, for a ball
,
does not lie in any hyperplane passing through the origin).
A similar condition (that suites better differentiable settings) due to Arnold and Pyartli is to require that the frequency map
is skew at some point
, this mens that there exists a smooth curve
passing through
such that, if
denotes the lifted curve
, then the matrix
is invertible. Under these type of non-degeneracy conditions one can guarantee that, under small enough perturbations, there exists a positive measure set of initial data evolving on maximal KAM tori for
.
Lower dimensional tori
Orbits of great interest for KAM theory are also quasi-periodic trajectories spanning lower dimensional tori, i.e., orbits
such that the closure of the set
is diffeomophic to
with
,
being the number of degrees of freedom (i.e., half of the dimension of the phase space). At difference with maximal KAM tori, the union of lower dimensional tori form a set of Lebesgue measure zero in phase space; nevertheless they
are extremely important in order to understand the dynamics and also in view of extensions of KAM theory to PDEs.
To fix ideas, consider the normal form of a lower dimensional elliptic torus
- (5)
where:
are (partial) action-angle variables;
are conjugated variables;
and
is a real
-dimensional parameter (for example,
might be a fixed action
around which one is making a Taylor expansion). The set
is an invariant
-dimensional torus for
:
. Such torus is linearly stable (elliptic) and the dynamics close to it, in the
-variables is just given by harmonic oscillations with frequencies
(tangential frequencies). Under suitable regularity and non-degeneracy assumptions (on the inner and tangential frequencies) such tori are persistent.
For example, let
vary in a closed set
of positive
-dimensional Lebesgue measure; let
be a Lipschitz homeomorphism and let
and
be real-analytic in the symplectic variables
and Lipschitz continuous in
. Assume that
for all
and
. Assume also the following (Melnikov -Pöschel) condition
Then, there exists
and a Cantor set
of positive measure such that to each
there corresponds, for any
, a torus
invariant for
.
- Many generalizations, particularly important for infinite dimensional extensions, of this kind of result are possible.
- The partially hyperbolic case, whose normal form is give by (5) with
replaced by
is much simpler (as in this case the tangential frequencies do not resonate with the inner ones); see (Graff, 1974).
Hamiltonian PDE's
KAM theory can be partially extended to infinite dimension, i.e., to partial differential equations (PDEs) carrying a Hamiltonian structure. Examples of such equations are: the wave equation, the (stationary) Schrödinger equation, KdV, etc. Under suitable hypotheses, nonlinear perturbations of these equations may be reduced to infinite coupled dynamical (ordinary differential) equations (e.g., for the wave equation one obtains infinitely many coupled harmonic oscillators). It is then possible to find quasi-periodic solutions corresponding to the embedding of a linear quasi-periodic flow on a finite dimensional torus into the infinite dimensional phase space associated to the equation. Also almost-periodic motions have been considered (i.e., trajectories with infinitely many independent frequencies). Several results in these directions have been obtained starting from the 1990's; see (Kuksin, 2004).
References
- Arnold , V I (1963a). Proof of a Theorem by A. N. Kolmogorov on the invariance of quasi-periodic motions under small perturbations of the Hamiltonian. Russian Math. Survey 18 : 13-40.
- Arnold , V I (1963b). Small divisor problems in classical and Celestial Mechanics. Russian Math. Survey 18 : 85-191.
- Arnold , V I (1964). Instability of dynamical systems with many degrees of freedom. Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 156 : 9-12.
- Chierchia, L and Gallavotti, G (1982). Smooth prime integrals for quasi-integrable Hamiltonian systems Il Nuovo Cimento. B. Serie 11 67: 277-295.
- Féjoz , J (2004). Dèmonstration du `théorème d'Arnol'd' sur la stabilité du système planétaire (d'après Herman). Ergodic Theory Dynam. Systems 5 : 1521-1582.
- Graff , S (1974). On the continuation of stable invariant tori for Hamiltonian systems. J. Differential Equations 15 : 1-69.
- Herman, M-R (1983). Sur les courbes invariantes par les difféomorphismes de l'anneau. Vol. 1. Astérisque 103: i+221.
- Kolmogorov, A N (1954). On the conservation of conditionally periodic motions under small perturbation of the Hamiltonian. Dokl. Akad. Nauk. SSR 98: 527-530.
- Kuksin, S B (2004). Fifteen years of KAM for PDE. Geometry, topology, and mathematical physics, Amer. Math. Soc. Transl. Ser. 2 212: 237-258.
- Melnikov , V K (1965). On certain cases of conservation of almost periodic motions with a small change of the Hamiltonian function. Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 165: 1245-1248.
- Moser , J K (1962). On invariant curves of area-preserving mappings of an annulus. Nach. Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Math. Phys. Kl. II 1 : 1-20.
- Moser , J K (1967). Convergent series expansions for quasi-periodic motions. Math. Ann. 169 : 136-176.
- Pöschel , J (1982). Integrability of Hamiltonian sytems on Cantor sets. Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 35 : 653-695.
- Rüssmann , H (1970 ). Kleine Nenner. I. Über invariante Kurven differenzierbarer Abbildungen eines Kreisringes. Nach. Akad. Wiss. Göttingen, Math. Phys. Kl. II 1970: 67-105.
- Rüssmann , H (1989). Nondegeneracy in the perturbation theory of integrable dynamical systems. Number theory and dynamical systems (York, 1987), London Math. Soc. Lecture Note Ser. 134 : 5-18.
Recommended reading
- Arnol'd, V I; Kozlov, V V and Neishtadt, A I (2006). Mathematical Aspects of Classical and Celestial Mechanics, Dynamical Systems III Series: Encyclopaedia of Mathematical Sciences. Springer-Verlag 3rd ed. Vol. 3: xiv+518.
- Moser, J K (1966). A rapidly convergent iteration method and non-linear partial differential equations Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa 20: 499-535.
- Moser, J K (1973). Stable and random motions in dynamical systems. With special emphasis on celestial mechanics Hermann Weyl Lectures, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J. Annals of Mathematics Studies 77: viii+198.
See also
Averaging, Aubry-Mather theory, Chaos, Computational celestial mechanics, Dynamical Systems, Hamiltonian Dynamics, Hamiltonian Normal Forms, N-Body Simulations, Normal Forms, Standard map, Symplectic maps, Three body problem
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