Stability analysis of dynamical regimes in nonlinear systems with discrete symmetries

Abstract

We present a theorem that allows to simplify linear stability analysis of periodic and quasiperiodic nonlinear regimes in N-particle mechanical systems (both conservative and dissipative) with different kinds of discrete symmetry. This theorem suggests a decomposition of the linearized system arising in the standard stability analysis into a number of subsystems whose dimensions can be considerably less than that of the full system. As an example of such simplification, we discuss the stability of bushes of modes (invariant manifolds) for the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam chains and prove another theorem about the maximal dimension of the above mentioned subsystems.