Principal Foliations of Surfaces near Ellipsoids

The lines of curvature of a surface embedded in $\R^3$ comprise its principal foliations. Principal foliations of surfaces embedded in $\R^3$ resemble phase portraits of two dimensional vector fields, but there are significant differences in their geometry because principal foliations are not orientable. The Poincar\'e-Bendixson Theorem precludes flows on the two sphere $S^2$ with recurrent trajectories larger than a periodic orbit, but there are convex surfaces whose principal foliations are closely related to non-vanishing vector fields on the torus $T^2$. This paper investigates families of such surfaces that have dense lines of curvature at a Cantor set $C$ of parameters. It introduces discrete one dimensional return maps of a cross-section whose trajectories are the intersections of a line of curvature with the cross-section. The main result proved here is that the return map of a generic surface has \emph{breaks}; i.e., jump discontinuities of its derivative. Khanin and Vul discovered a qualitative difference between one parameter families of smooth diffeomorphisms of the circle and those with breaks: smooth families have positive Lebesgue measure sets of parameters with irrational rotation number and dense trajectories while families of diffeomorphisms with a single break do not. This paper discusses whether Lebesgue almost all parameters yield closed lines of curvature in families of embedded surfaces.

A Note on the Conjugacy Between Two Critical Circle Maps

We study a conjugacy between two critical circle homeomorphisms with irrational rotation number. Let fi, i = 1, 2 be a C3 circle homeomorphisms with critical point x(i) cr of the order 2mi + 1. We prove that if 2m1 + 1 ̸= 2m2 + 1, then conjugating between f1 and f2 is a singular function. Keywords: circle homeomorphism, critical point, conjugating map, rotation number, singular function

The thermodynamic formalism and exponents of singularity of invariant measure of circle maps with a single break

Let $T \in C^{2+ \varepsilon} (S^{1} \setminus \{x_{b} \})$, $\varepsilon> 0 $, be a circle homeomorphism with one break point $x_{b}$, at which $ T'(x) $ has a discontinuity of the first kind and both one-sided derivatives at the point $x_{b} $ are strictly positive. Assume that the rotation number $\rho_{T}$ is irrational and its decomposition into a continued fraction beginning from a certain place coincides with the golden mean, i.e., $\rho_{T}=[m_{1}, m_{2}, \ldots, m_{l}, \, m_{l + 1}, \ldots] $, $ m_{s} = 1$, $s> l> 0$. Since the rotation number is irrational, the map $ T $ is strictly ergodic, that is, possesses a unique probability invariant measure $\mu_{T}$. A.A. Dzhalilov and K.M. Khanin proved that the probability invariant measure $ \mu_{G} $ of any circle homeomorphism $ G \in C^{2+ \varepsilon} (S^{1} \setminus \{x_{b} \})$, $\varepsilon> 0$, with one break point $ x_{b} $ and the irrational rotation number $ \rho_{G} $ is singular with respect to the Lebesgue measure $ \lambda $ on the circle, i.e., there is a measurable subset of $ A \subset S^{1} $ such that $ \mu_ {G} (A) = 1 $ and $ \lambda (A) = 0$. We will construct a thermodynamic formalism for homeomorphisms $ T_{b} \in C^{2+ \varepsilon} (S^{1} \setminus \{x_{b} \})$, $\varepsilon> 0 $, with one break at the point $ x_{b} $ and rotation number equal to the golden mean, i.e., $ \rho_{T}:= \frac {\sqrt{5} -1}{2} $. Using the constructed thermodynamic formalism, we study the exponents of singularity of the invariant measure $ \mu_{T} $ of homeomorphism $ T $.

Cherry Maps with Different Critical Exponents: Bifurcation of Geometry

We consider order-preserving $C^3$ circle maps with a flat piece, irrational rotation number and critical exponents $(l_1, l_2)$. We detect a change in the geometry of the system. For $(l_1, l_2) \in [1, 2]^2$ the geometry is degenerate and becomes bounded for $(l_1, l_2) \in [2, \infty)^2 \backslash \{(2, 2)\}$. When the rotation number is of the form $[abab \ldots]$; for some $a, b \in \mathbb{N}^*$, the geometry is bounded for $(l_1, l_2)$ belonging above a curve defined on $]1, +\infty[^2$. As a consequence, we estimate the Hausdorff dimension of the nonwandering set $K_f=\mathcal{S}^1\backslash \bigcup^\infty_{i=0}f^{-i}(U)$. Precisely, the Hausdorff dimension of this set is equal to zero when the geometry is degenerate and it is strictly positive when the geometry is bounded.

Non-rigidity for circle homeomorphisms with several break points

In this work, we consider two class $P$-homeomorphisms, $f$ and $g$, of the circle with break point singularities, that are differentiable maps except at some singular points where the derivative has a jump. Assume that they have the same irrational rotation number of bounded type and that the derivatives $\text{Df}$ and $\text{Dg}$ are absolutely continuous on every continuity interval of $\text{Df}$ and $\text{Dg}$, respectively. We show that if $f$ and $g$ are not break-equivalent, then any topological conjugating $h$ between $f$ and $g$ is a singular function, i.e., it is continuous on the circle, but $\text{Dh}(x)=0$ almost everywhere (a.e.) with respect to the Lebesgue measure. In particular, this result holds under some combinatorial assumptions on the jumps at break points. It also generalizes previous results obtained for one and two break points and complements that of Cunha–Smania which was established for break equivalence.

Invariant circles and depinning transition

We associate the existence or non-existence of rotational invariant circles of an area-preserving twist map on the cylinder with a physically motivated quantity, the depinning force, which is a critical value in the depinning transition. Assume that $H:\mathbb{R}^{2}\mapsto \mathbb{R}$ is a $C^{2}$ generating function of an exact area-preserving twist map $\bar{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ and consider the tilted Frenkel–Kontorova (FK) model: $$\begin{eqnarray}{\dot{x}}_{n}=-D_{1}H(x_{n},x_{n+1})-D_{2}H(x_{n-1},x_{n})+F,\quad n\in \mathbb{Z},\end{eqnarray}$$ where $F\geq 0$ is the driving force. The depinning force is the critical value $F_{d}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D714})$ depending on the mean spacing $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$ of particles, above which the tilted FK model is sliding, and below which the particles are pinned. We prove that there exists an invariant circle with irrational rotation number $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$ for $\bar{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ if and only if $F_{d}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D714})=0$. For rational $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$, $F_{d}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D714})=0$ is equivalent to the existence of an invariant circle on which $\bar{\unicode[STIX]{x1D711}}$ is topologically conjugate to the rational rotation with rotation number $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$. Such conclusions were claimed much earlier by Aubry et al. We also show that the depinning force $F_{d}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D714})$ is continuous at irrational $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}$.

A circle diffeomorphism with breaks that is absolutely continuously linearizable

In this paper we answer positively to a question of whether it is possible for a circle diffeomorphism with breaks to be smoothly conjugate to a rigid rotation in the case where its breaks are lying on pairwise distinct trajectories. An example constructed is a piecewise linear circle homeomorphism that has four break points lying on distinct trajectories and whose invariant measure is absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure. The irrational rotation number for our example can be chosen to be a Roth number, but not of bounded type.

A Necessary Condition of Nonminimal Aubry–Mather Sets for Monotone Recurrence Relations

In this paper, we show that a necessary condition for nonminimal Aubry–Mather sets of monotone recurrence relations is that the set of all Birkhoff minimizers with some irrational rotation number does not constitute a foliation, i.e. the gaps of the minimal Aubry–Mather set are not filled up with Birkhoff minimizers.

Boundaries of instability zones for symplectic twist maps

Very few things are known about the curves that are at the boundary of the instability zones of symplectic twist maps. It is known that in general they have an irrational rotation number and that they cannot be KAM curves. We address the following questions. Can they be very smooth? Can they be non-${C}^{1} $?Can they have a Diophantine or a Liouville rotation number? We give a partial answer for${C}^{1} $and${C}^{2} $twist maps.In Theorem 1, we construct a${C}^{2} $symplectic twist map$f$of the annulus that has an essential invariant curve$\Gamma $such that$\bullet $ $\Gamma $is not differentiable;$\bullet $the dynamics of${f}_{\vert \Gamma } $is conjugated to the one of a Denjoy counter-example;$\bullet $ $\Gamma $is at the boundary of an instability zone for$f$.Using the Hayashi connecting lemma, we prove in Theroem 2 that any symplectic twist map restricted to an essential invariant curve can be embedded as the dynamics along a boundary of an instability zone for some${C}^{1} $symplectic twist map.