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Gabriele Benedetti

Publications and source records attributed to Gabriele Benedetti.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2018

The contact property for magnetic flows on surfaces

This is the author's PhD Thesis (University of Cambridge, 2014) in its original form. In the first part, using an invariance result, we compute the symplectic homology of contact-type energy levels for magnetic systems on surfaces, provided the energy is very large or very small. In the second part, which is partially contained in the later paper (Benedetti, Ergod. Theory Dynam. Syst., 2016), we discuss some rotationally symmetric examples and establish dynamical convexity for symplectic magnetic flows on low energy levels.

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arXiv2018

Infinitely many periodic orbits just above the Mañé critical value on the 2-sphere

We introduce a new critical value $c_\infty(L)$ for Tonelli Lagrangians $L$ on the tangent bundle of the 2-sphere without minimizing measures supported on a point. We show that $c_\infty(L)$ is strictly larger than the Mañé critical value $c(L)$, and on every energy level $e\in(c(L),c_\infty(L))$ there exist infinitely many periodic orbits of the Lagrangian system of $L$, one of which is a local minimizer of the free-period action functional. This has applications to Finsler metrics of Randers type on the 2-sphere. We show that, under a suitable criticality assumption on a given Randers metric, after rescaling its magnetic part with a sufficiently large multiplicative constant, the new metric admits infinitely many closed geodesics, one of which is a waist. Examples of critical Randers metrics include the celebrated Katok metric.

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arXiv2018

Minimal boundaries in Tonelli Lagrangian systems

We prove several new results concerning action minimizing periodic orbits of Tonelli Lagrangian systems on an oriented closed surface $M$. More specifically, we show that for every energy larger than the maximal energy of a constant orbit and smaller than or equal to the Mañé critical value of the universal abelian cover, the Lagrangian system admits a minimal boundary, i.e. a global minimizer of the Lagrangian action on the space of smooth boundaries of open sets of $M$. We also extend the celebrated graph theorem of Mather in this context: in the tangent bundle $TM$, the union of the supports of all lifted minimal boundaries with a given energy projects injectively to the base $M$. Finally, we prove the existence of action minimizing simple periodic orbits on energies just above the Mañé critical value of the universal abelian cover. This provides in particular a class of non-reversible Finsler metrics on the 2-sphere possessing infinitely many closed geodesics.

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arXiv2016

On the periodic motions of a charged particle in an oscillating magnetic field on the two-torus

Let $(\mathbb T^2,g)$ be a Riemannian two-torus and let $σ$ be an oscillating $2$-form on $\mathbb T^2$. We show that for almost every small positive number $k$ the magnetic flow of the pair $(g,σ)$ has infinitely many periodic orbits with energy $k$. This result complements the analogous statement for closed surfaces of genus at least $2$ [Asselle and Benedetti, Calc. Var. Partial Differential Equations, 2015] and at the same time extends the main theorem in [Abbondandolo, Macarini, Mazzucchelli, and Paternain, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS), to appear] to the non-exact oscillating case.

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arXiv2016

The multiplicity problem for periodic orbits of magnetic flows on the 2-sphere

We consider magnetic Tonelli Hamiltonian systems on the cotangent bundle of the 2-sphere, where the magnetic form is not necessarily exact. It is known that, on very low and on high energy levels, these systems may have only finitely many periodic orbits. Our main result asserts that almost all energy levels in a precisely characterized intermediate range $(e_0,e_1)$ possess infinitely many periodic orbits. Such a range of energies is non-empty, for instance, in the physically relevant case where the Tonelli Lagrangian is a kinetic energy and the magnetic form is oscillating (in which case, $e_0=0$ is the minimal energy of the system).

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arXiv2016

Magnetic Katok Examples on the two-sphere

We show that there exist non-exact magnetic flows on the two-sphere having an energy level whose double cover is strictly contactomorphic to an irrational ellipsoid in $\mathbb C^2$. Our construction generalizes the examples of integrable Finsler metrics on the two-sphere with only two closed geodesics due to A. Katok.

math.SG↗
arXiv2016

Lecture notes on closed orbits for twisted autonomous Tonelli Lagrangian flows

These notes were prepared in occasion of a mini-course given by the author at the "CIMPA Research School - Hamiltonian and Lagrangian Dynamics" (10-19 March 2015 - Salto, Uruguay). The talks were meant as an introduction to the problem of finding periodic orbits of prescribed energy for autonomous Tonelli Lagrangian systems on the twisted cotangent bundle of a closed manifold. In the first part of the lecture notes, we put together in a general theorem old and new results on the subject. In the second part, we focus on an important class of examples: magnetic flows on surfaces. For such systems, we discuss a special method, originally due to Taimanov, to find periodic orbits with low energy and we study in detail the stability properties of the energy levels.

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arXiv2015

The Lusternik-Fet theorem for autonomous Tonelli Hamiltonian systems on twisted cotangent bundles

Let $M$ be a closed manifold and consider the Hamiltonian flow associated to an autonomous Tonelli Hamiltonian $H:T^*M\rightarrow \mathbb R$ and a twisted symplectic form. In this paper we study the existence of contractible periodic orbits for such a flow. Our main result asserts that if $M$ is not aspherical, then contractible periodic orbits exist for almost all energies above the maximum critical value of $H$.

math.SG↗
arXiv2015

On the existence of periodic orbits for magnetic systems on the two-sphere

We prove that there exist periodic orbits on almost all compact regular energy levels of a Hamiltonian function defined on a twisted cotangent bundle over the two-sphere. As a corollary, given any Riemannian two-sphere and a magnetic field on it, there exists a closed magnetic geodesic for almost all kinetic energy levels.

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arXiv2015

The contact property for nowhere vanishing magnetic fields on the two-sphere

In this paper we give some positive and negative results about the contact property for the energy levels $Σ_c$ of a symplectic magnetic field on $S^2$. In the first part we focus on the case of the area form on a surface of revolution. We state a sufficient condition for an energy level to be of contact type and give an example where the contact property fails. If the magnetic curvature is positive, the dynamics and the action of invariant measures can be numerically computed. This hints at the conjecture that an energy level of a symplectic magnetic field with positive magnetic curvature should be of contact type. In the second part we show that, for small energies, there exists a convex hypersurface $N_c$ in $\mathbb C^2$ and a covering map $p_c:N_c \rightarrow Σ_c$ such that the pull-back via $p_c$ of the characteristic distribution on $Σ_c$ is the standard characteristic distribution on $N_c$. As a corollary we prove that there are either two or infinitely many periodic orbits on $Σ_c$. The second alternative holds if there exists a contractible prime periodic orbit.

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