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Alfonso Sorrentino

Publications and source records attributed to Alfonso Sorrentino.

35 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2018

On the Local Birkhoff Conjecture for Convex Billiards

The classical Birkhoff conjecture claims that the boundary of a strictly convex integrable billiard table is necessarily an ellipse (or a circle as a special case). In this article we prove a complete local version of this conjecture: a small integrable perturbation of an ellipse must be an ellipse. This extends and completes the result in [3], where nearly circular domains were considered. One of the crucial ideas in the proof is to extend action-angle coordinates for elliptic billiards into complex domains (with respect to the angle), and to thoroughly analyze the nature of their complex singularities. As an application, we are able to prove some spectral rigidity results for elliptic domains.

math.DS↗
arXiv2018

Nearly circular domains which are integrable close to the boundary are ellipses

The Birkhoff conjecture says that the boundary of a strictly convex integrable billiard table is necessarily an ellipse. In this article, we consider a stronger notion of integrability, namely integrability close to the boundary, and prove a local version of this conjecture: a small perturbation of an ellipse of small eccentricity which preserves integrability near the boundary, is itself an ellipse. This extends the result in [1], where integrability was assumed on a larger set. In particular, it shows that (local) integrability near the boundary implies global integrability. One of the crucial ideas in the proof consists in analyzing Taylor expansion of the corresponding action-angle coordinates with respect to the eccentricity parameter, deriving and studying higher order conditions for the preservation of integrable rational caustics.

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arXiv2017

Markov Numbers, Mather's $β$ function and stable norm

V. Fock [7] introduced an interesting function $ψ(x)$, $x \in {\mathbb R}$ related to Markov numbers. We explain its relation to Federer-Gromov's stable norm and Mather's $β$-function, and use this to study its properties. We prove that $ψ$ and its natural generalisations are differentiable at every irrational $x$ and non-differentiable otherwise, by exploiting the relation with length of closed geodesics on the punctured or one-hole tori with the hyperbolic metric and the results by Bangert [3] and McShane- Rivin [19].

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arXiv2017

Aubry-Mather Theory for Conformally Symplectic Systems

In this article we develop an analogue of Aubry-Mather theory for a class of dissipative systems, namely conformally symplectic systems, and prove the existence of interesting invariant sets, which, in analogy to the conservative case, will be called the Aubry and the Mather sets. Besides describing their structure and their dynamical significance, we shall analyze their attracting/repelling properties, as well as their noteworthy role in driving the asymptotic dynamics of the system.

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arXiv2016

Global Results for Eikonal Hamilton-Jacobi Equations on Networks

We study a one-parameter family of Eikonal Hamilton-Jacobi equations on an embedded network, and prove that there exists a unique critical value for which the corresponding equation admits global solutions, in a suitable viscosity sense. Such a solution is identified, via an Hopf-Lax type formula, once an admissible trace is assigned on an intrinsic boundary. The salient point of our method is to associate to the network an abstract graph, encoding all of the information on the complexity of the network, and to relate the differential equation to a discrete functional equation on the graph. Comparison principles and representation formulae are proven in the supercritical case as well.

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arXiv2013

Symplectic and contact properties of the Mañé critical value of the universal cover

We discuss several symplectic aspects related to the Mañé critical value c_u of the universal cover of a Tonelli Hamiltonian. In particular we show that the critical energy level is never of virtual contact type for manifolds of dimension greater than or equal to three. We also show the symplectic invariance of the finiteness of the Peierls barrier and the Aubry set of the universal cover. We also provide an example where c_u coincides with the infimum of Mather's α-function but the Aubry set of the universal cover is empty and the Peierls barrier is finite. A second example exhibits all the ergodic invariant minimizing measures with zero homotopy, showing that, quite surprisingly, the union of their supports is not a graph, in contrast with Mather's celebrated graph theorem.

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arXiv2013

Computing Mather's β-function for Birkhoff billiards

This article is concerned with the study of Mather's β-function associated to Birkhoff billiards. This function corresponds to the minimal average action of orbits with a prescribed rotation number and, from a different perspective, it can be related to the maximal perimeter of periodic orbits with a given rotation number, the so-called Marked length spectrum. After having recalled its main properties and its relevance to the study of the billiard dynamics, we stress its connections to some intriguing open questions: Birkhoff conjecture and the isospectral rigidity of convex billiards. Both these problems, in fact, can be conveniently translated into questions on this function. This motivates our investigation aiming at understanding its main features and properties. In particular, we provide an explicit representation of the coefficients of its (formal) Taylor expansion at zero, only in terms of the curvature of the boundary. In the case of integrable billiards, this result provides a representation formula for the β-function near 0. Moreover, we apply and check these results in the case of circular and elliptic billiards.

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arXiv2012

Weak Liouville-Arnold Theorems & Their Implications

This paper studies the existence of invariant smooth Lagrangian graphs for Tonelli Hamiltonian systems with symmetries. In particular, we consider Tonelli Hamiltonians with n independent but not necessarily involutive constants of motion and obtain two theorems reminiscent of the Liouville-Arnold theorem. Moreover, we also obtain results on the structure of the configuration spaces of such systems that are reminiscent of results on the configuration space of completely integrable Tonelli Hamiltonians.

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arXiv2012

On conjugacy of convex billiards

Given a strictly convex domain $Ω$ in $\R^2$, there is a natural way to define a billiard map in it: a rectilinear path hitting the boundary reflects so that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. In this paper we answer a relatively old question of Guillemin. We show that if two billiard maps are $C^{1,α}$-conjugate near the boundary, for some $α> 1/2$, then the corresponding domains are similar, i.e. they can be obtained one from the other by a rescaling and an isometry. As an application, we prove a conditional version of Birkhoff conjecture on the integrability of planar billiards and show that the original conjecture is equivalent to what we call an "Extension problem". Quite interestingly, our result and a positive solution to this extension problem would provide an answer to a closely related question in spectral theory: if the marked length spectra of two domains are the same, is it true that they are isometric?

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arXiv2010

Uniqueness of Invariant Lagrangian Graphs in a Homology or a Cohomology Class

Given a smooth compact Riemannian manifold $M$ and a Hamiltonian $H$ on the cotangent space $T^*M$, strictly convex and superlinear in the momentum variables, we prove uniqueness of certain ergodic invariant Lagrangian graphs within a given homology or cohomology class. In particular, in the context of quasi-integrable Hamiltonian systems, our result implies global uniqueness of Lagrangian KAM tori with rotation vector $ρ$. This result extends generically to the $C^0$-closure of KAM tori.

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arXiv2010

Action minimizing properties and distances on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms

In this article we prove that for a smooth fiberwise convex Hamiltonian, the asymptotic Hofer distance from the identity gives a strict upper bound to the value at 0 of Mather's $β$ function, thus providing a negative answer to a question asked by K. Siburg in \cite{Siburg1998}. However, we show that equality holds if one considers the asymptotic distance defined in \cite{Viterbo1992}.

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arXiv2010

Lecture notes on Mather's theory for Lagrangian systems

These are introductory lecture notes on Mather's theory for Tonelli Lagrangian and Hamiltonian systems. They are based on a series of lectures given by the author at Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" (April 2009), at University of Cambridge (academic year 2009-2010) and at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (June 2010).

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arXiv2010

On the Integrability of Tonelli Hamiltonians

In this article we discuss a weaker version of Liouville's theorem on the integrability of Hamiltonian systems. We show that in the case of Tonelli Hamiltonians the involution hypothesis on the integrals of motion can be completely dropped and still interesting information on the dynamics of the system can be deduced. Moreover, we prove that on the n-dimensional torus this weaker condition implies classical integrability in the sense of Liouville. The main idea of the proof consists in relating the existence of independent integrals of motion of a Tonelli Hamiltonian to the size of its Mather and Aubry sets. As a byproduct we point out the existence of non-trivial common invariant sets for all Hamiltonians that Poisson-commute with a Tonelli one.

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arXiv2007

On the total disconnectedness of the quotient Aubry set

In this paper we show that the quotient Aubry set associated to certain Lagrangians is totally disconnected (i.e., every connected component consists of a single point). Moreover, we discuss the relation between this problem and a Morse-Sard type property for (difference of) critical subsolutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations.

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