A Reduction Method for Higher Order Variational Equations of Hamiltonian Systems

Abstract

Let $\mathbf{k}$ be a differential field and let $[A]\,:\,Y'=A\,Y$ be a linear differential system where $A\in\mathrm{Mat}(n\,,\,\mathbf{k})$. We say that $A$ is in a reduced form if $A\in\mathfrak{g}(\bar{\mathbf{k}})$ where $\mathfrak{g}$ is the Lie algebra of $[A]$ and $\bar{\mathbf{k}}$ denotes the algebraic closure of $\mathbf{k}$. We owe the existence of such reduced forms to a result due to Kolchin and Kovacic \cite{Ko71a}. This paper is devoted to the study of reduced forms, of (higher order) variational equations along a particular solution of a complex analytical hamiltonian system $X$. Using a previous result \cite{ApWea}, we will assume that the first order variational equation has an abelian Lie algebra so that, at first order, there are no Galoisian obstructions to Liouville integrability. We give a strategy to (partially) reduce the variational equations at order $m+1$ if the variational equations at order $m$ are already in a reduced form and their Lie algebra is abelian. Our procedure stops when we meet obstructions to the meromorphic integrability of $X$. We make strong use both of the lower block triangular structure of the variational equations and of the notion of associated Lie algebra of a linear differential system (based on the works of Wei and Norman in \cite{WeNo63a}). Obstructions to integrability appear when at some step we obtain a non-trivial commutator between a diagonal element and a nilpotent (subdiagonal) element of the associated Lie algebra. We use our method coupled with a reasoning on polylogarithms to give a new and systematic proof of the non-integrability of the Hénon-Heiles system. We conjecture that our method is not only a partial reduction procedure but a complete reduction algorithm. In the context of complex Hamiltonian systems, this would mean that our method would be an effective version of the Morales-Ramis-Simó theorem.