Dr Claudia Wulff

We consider semilinear evolution equations for which the linear part generates a strongly continuous semigroup and the nonlinear part is sufficiently smooth on a scale of Hilbert spaces. In this setting, we prove the existence of solutions which are temporally smooth in the norm of the lowest rung of the scale for an open set of initial data on the highest rung of the scale. Under the same assumptions, we prove that a class of implicit, $A$-stable Runge--Kutta semidiscretizations in time of such equations are smooth as maps from open subsets of the highest rung into the lowest rung of the scale. Under the additional assumption that the linear part of the evolution equation is normal or sectorial, we prove full order convergence of the semidiscretization in time for initial data on open sets. Our results apply, in particular, to the semilinear wave equation and to the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation.

We study semilinear evolution equations $ \frac {\d U}{\d t}=AU+B(U)$ posed on a Hilbert space $\kY$, where $A$ is normal and generates a strongly continuous semigroup, $B$ is a smooth nonlinearity from $\kY_\ell = D(A^\ell)$ to itself, and $\ell \in I \subseteq [0,L]$, $L \geq 0$, $0,L \in I$. In particular the one-dimensional semilinear wave equation and nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with periodic, Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions fit into this framework. We discretize the evolution equation with an A-stable Runge-Kutta method in time, retaining continuous space, and prove convergence of order $O(h^{p\ell/(p+1)})$ for non-smooth initial data $U^0\in \kY_\ell$, where $\ell\leq p+1$, for a method of classical order $p$, extending a result by Brenner and Thom\'ee for linear systems. Our approach is to project the semiflow and numerical method to spectral Galerkin approximations, and to balance the projection error with the error of the time discretization of the projected system. Numerical experiments suggest that our estimates are sharp.

Relative equilibria and relative periodic orbits (RPOs) are ubiquitous in symmetric Hamiltonian systems and occur for example in celestial mechanics, molecular dynamics and rigid body motion. Relative equilibria are equilibria and RPOs are periodic orbits in the symmetry reduced system. Relative Lyapunov centre bifurcations are bifurcations of relative periodic orbits from relative equilibria corresponding to Lyapunov centre bifurcations of the symmetry reduced dynamics. In this paper we first prove a relative Lyapunov centre theorem by combining recent results on persistence of RPOs in Hamiltonian systems with a symmetric Lyapunov centre theorem of Montaldi et al. We then develop numerical methods for the detection of relative Lyapunov centre bifurcations along branches of RPOs and for their computation. We apply our methods to Lagrangian relative equilibria of the N body problem.

We consider semilinear evolution equations for which the linear part generates a strongly continuous semigroup and the nonlinear part is sufficiently smooth on a scale of Hilbert spaces. In this setting, we prove the existence of solutions which are temporally smooth in the norm of the lowest rung of the scale for an open set of initial data on the highest rung of the scale. Under the same assumptions, we prove that a class of implicit, A-stable Runge-Kutta semidiscretizations in time of such equations are smooth as maps from open subsets of the highest rung into the lowest rung of the scale. Under the additional assumption that the linear part of the evolution equation is normal or sectorial, we prove full order convergence of the semidiscretization in time for initial data on open sets. Our results apply, in particular, to the semilinear wave equation and to the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in studying time-delayed coupled networks of oscillators since these occur in many real life applications. In many cases symmetry patterns can emerge in these networks, as a consequence a part of the system might repeat itself, and properties of this symmetric subsystem are representative of the whole dynamics. In this paper an analysis of the second order N-node time-delay fully connected network is made based on previous work by Correa and Piqueira [8] for a 2-node network. This study is carried out using symmetry groups. We show the existence of multiple eigenvalues forced by symmetry, as well as the existence of steady-state and Hopf bifurcations (in [8] only Hopf bifurcations were found). Three diff erent models are used to analyze the network dynamics, namely, the full-phase, the phase, and the phase diff erence model. We determine a nite set of frequencies that might correspond to Hopf bifurcations in each case for critical values of the delay. The Sn map proposed in [10] is used to actually find Hopf bifurcations along with numerical calculations using the Lambert W function. Numerical simulations are used in order to con firm the analytical results. Although we restrict attention to second order nodes, the results could be extended to higher order networks provided the time delay in the connections between nodes remains equal.

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in studying time-delayed coupled networks of oscillators since these occur in many real life applications. In many cases symmetry patterns can emerge in these networks, as a consequence a part of the system might repeat itself, and properties of this subsystem are representative of the dynamics on the whole phase space. In this paper an analysis of the second order N-node time-delay fully connected network is presented which is based on previous work: synchronous states in time-delay coupled periodic oscillators: a stability criterion. Correa and Piqueira (2013), for a 2-node network. This study is carried out using symmetry groups. We show the existence of multiple eigenvalues forced by symmetry, as well as the existence of Hopf bifurcations. Three different models are used to analyze the network dynamics, namely, the full-phase, the phase, and the phase-difference model. We determine a finite set of frequencies É, that might correspond to Hopf bifurcations in each case for critical values of the delay. The Sn map is used to actually find Hopf bifurcations along with numerical calculations using the Lambert W function. Numerical simulations are used in order to confirm the analytical results. Although we restrict attention to second order nodes, the results could be extended to higher order networks provided the time-delay in the connections between nodes remains equal. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We consider semilinear evolution equations for which the linear part is normal and generates a strongly continuous semigroup and the nonlinear part is sufficiently smooth on a scale of Hilbert spaces. We approximate their semiflow by an implicit, A-stable Runge--Kutta discretization in time and a spectral Galerkin truncation in space. We show regularity of the Galerkin-truncated semiflow and its time-discretization on open sets of initial values with bounds that are uniform in the spatial resolution and the initial value. We also prove convergence of the space-time discretization without any condition that couples the time step to the spatial resolution. Then we estimate the Galerkin truncation error for the semiflow of the evolution equation, its Runge--Kutta discretization, and their respective derivatives, showing how the order of the Galerkin truncation error depends on the smoothness of the initial data. Our results apply, in particular, to the semilinear wave equation and to the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation.

The bifurcation theory and numerics of periodic orbits of general dynamical systems is well developed, and in recent years, there has been rapid progress in the development of a bifurcation theory for dynamical systems with structure, such as symmetry or symplecticity. But as yet, there are few results on the numerical computation of those bifurcations. The methods we present in this paper are a first step toward a systematic numerical analysis of generic bifurcations of Hamiltonian symmetric periodic orbits and relative periodic orbits (RPOs). First, we show how to numerically exploit spatio-temporal symmetries of Hamiltonian periodic orbits. Then we describe a general method for the numerical computation of RPOs persisting from periodic orbits in a symmetry breaking bifurcation. Finally, we present an algorithm for the numerical continuation of non-degenerate Hamiltonian relative periodic orbits with regular drift-momentum pair. Our path following algorithm is based on a multiple shooting algorithm for the numerical computation of periodic orbits via an adaptive Poincaré section and a tangential continuation method with implicit reparametrization. We apply our methods to continue the famous figure eight choreography of the three-body system. We find a relative period doubling bifurcation of the planar rotating eight family and compute the rotating choreographies bifurcating from it. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

We consider semilinear evolution equations for which the linear part is normal and generates a strongly continuous semigroup and the nonlinear part is sufficiently smooth on a scale of Hilbert spaces. We approximate their semiflow by an implicit, A-stable Runge--Kutta discretization in time and a spectral Galerkin truncation in space. We show regularity of the Galerkin-truncated semiflow and its time-discretization on open sets of initial values with bounds that are uniform in the spatial resolution and the initial value. We also prove convergence of the space-time discretization without any condition that couples the time step to the spatial resolution. Then we estimate the Galerkin truncation error for the semiflow of the evolution equation, its Runge--Kutta discretization, and their respective derivatives, showing how the order of the Galerkin truncation error depends on the smoothness of the initial data. Our results apply, in particular, to the semilinear wave equation and to the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation.

In this paper we prove the existence of an almost invariant symplectic slow manifold for analytic Hamiltonian slow-fast systems with finitely many slow degrees of freedom for which the error field is exponentially small. We allow for infinitely many fast degrees of freedom. The method we use is motivated by a paper of MacKay from 2004. The method does not notice resonances, and therefore we do not pose any restrictions on the motion normal to the slow manifold other than it being fast and analytic. We also present a stability result and obtain a generalization of a result of Gelfreich and Lerman on an invariant slow manifold to (finitely) many fast degrees of freedom.

We develop a general stability theory for equilibrium points of Poisson dynamical systems and relative equilibria of Hamiltonian systems with symmetries, including several generalisations of the Energy-Casimir and Energy-Momentum Methods. Using a topological generalisation of Lyapunov?s result that an extremal critical point of a conserved quantity is stable, we show that a Poisson equilibrium is stable if it is an isolated point in the intersection of a level set of a conserved function with a subset of the phase space that is related to the topology of the symplectic leaf space at that point. This criterion is applied to generalise the energy-momentum method to Hamiltonian systems which are invariant under non-compact symmetry groups for which the coadjoint orbit space is not Hausdorff. We also show that a G-stable relative equilibrium satisfies the stronger condition of being A-stable, where A is a specific group-theoretically defined subset of G which contains the momentum isotropy subgroup of the relative equilibrium. The results are illustrated by an application to the stability of a rigid body in an ideal irrotational fluid.

We prove that a class of A-stable symplectic Runge--Kutta time semidiscretizations (including the Gauss--Legendre methods) applied to a class of semilinear Hamiltonian PDEs which are well-posed on spaces of analytic functions with analytic initial data can be embedded into a modified Hamiltonian flow up to an exponentially small error. As a consequence, such time-semidiscretizations conserve the modified Hamiltonian up to an exponentially small error. The modified Hamiltonian is O(h^p)-close to the original energy where p is the order of the method and h the time step-size. Examples of such systems are the semilinear wave equation or the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with analytic nonlinearity and periodic boundary conditions. Standard Hamiltonian interpolation results do not apply here because of the occurrence of unbounded operators in the construction of the modified vector field. This loss of regularity in the construction can be taken care of by projecting the PDE to a subspace where the operators occurring in the evolution equation are bounded and by coupling the number of excited modes as well as the number of terms in the expansion of the modified vector field with the step size. This way we obtain exponential estimates of the form O(\exp(-c/h^{1/(1+q)})) with c>0 and q \geq 0; for the semilinear wave equation, q=1, and for the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, q=2. We give an example which shows that analyticity of the initial data is necessary to obtain exponential estimates.

In this paper we prove the existence of an almost invariant symplectic slow manifold for analytic Hamiltonian slow-fast systems with finitely many slow degrees of freedom for which the error field is exponentially small. We allow for infinitely many fast degrees of freedom. The method we use is motivated by a paper of MacKay from 2004. The method does not notice resonances, and therefore we do not pose any restrictions on the motion normal to the slow manifold other than it being fast and analytic. We also present a stability result and obtain a generalization of a result of Gelfreich and Lerman on an invariant slow manifold to (finitely) many fast degrees of freedom.