Bifurcation from periodic solutions of central force problems in the three-dimensional space

TL;DR

This paper studies how small electromagnetic perturbations affect periodic solutions in three-dimensional central force problems, using bifurcation theory and Hamiltonian methods, with applications to classical and relativistic Kepler problems.

Contribution

It introduces a bifurcation approach for periodic solutions under electromagnetic perturbations in 3D central force systems, utilizing variational methods and action-angle coordinates.

Findings

Existence of bifurcated periodic solutions under small perturbations.

Application of abstract bifurcation theorem to Hamiltonian systems.

Relevance to classical and relativistic Kepler problems.

Abstract

The paper deals with electromagnetic perturbations of a central force problem of the form \begin{equation*} \dfrac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t} \bigl( \varphi(\dot{x}) \bigr) = V'(|x|) \dfrac{x}{|x|} + E_{\varepsilon}(t,x)+\dot{x} \wedge B_{\varepsilon}(t,x), \qquad x \in \mathbb{R}^3 \setminus \{0\}, \end{equation*} where $V \colon (0,+\infty) \to \mathbb{R}$ is a smooth function, $E_\varepsilon$ and $B_\varepsilon$ are respectively the electric field and the magnetic field, smooth and periodic in time, $\varepsilon\in\mathbb{R}$ is a small parameter. The considered differential operator includes, as special cases, the classical one, $\varphi(v)=mv$, as well as that of special relativity, $\varphi(v) = mv/\sqrt{1-\vert v \vert^2/c^2}$. We investigate whether non-circular periodic solutions of the unperturbed problem (i.e., with $\varepsilon=0$) can be continued into periodic solutions for $\varepsilon\neq0$ small, both for the fixed-period problem and, if the perturbation is time-independent, for the fixed-energy problem. The proof is based on an abstract bifurcation theorem of variational nature, which is applied to suitable Hamiltonian action functionals. In checking the required non-degeneracy conditions we take advantage of the existence of partial action-angle coordinates as provided by the Mishchenko--Fomenko theorem for superintegrable systems. Physically relevant problems to which our results can be applied are homogeneous central force problems in classical mechanics and the Kepler problem in special relativity.