Rafael Ortega

We present some results on the absence of a wide class of invariant measures for dynamical systems possessing attractors. We then consider a generalization of the classical nonholonomic Suslov problem which shows how previous investigations of existence of invariant measures for nonholonomic systems should necessarily be extended beyond the class of measures with strictly positive $C^1$ densities if one wishes to determine dynamical obstructions to the presence of attractors.

We investigate stability properties of a type of periodic solutions of the $N$-vortex problem on general domains $\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^2$. The solutions in question bifurcate from rigidly rotating configurations of the whole-plane vortex system and a critical point $a_0\in\Omega$ of the Robin function associated to the Dirichlet Laplacian of $\Omega$. Under a linear stability condition on the initial rotating configuration, which can be verified for examples consisting of up to 4 vortices, we show that the linear stability of the induced solutions is solely determined by the type of the critical point $a_0$. If $a_0$ is a saddle, they are unstable. If $a_0$ is a nondegenerate maximum or minimum, they are stable in a certain linear sense. Since nondegenerate minima exist generically, our results apply to most domains $\Omega$. The influence of the general domain $\Omega$ can be seen as a perturbation breaking the symmetries of the $N$-vortex system on $\mathbb{R}^2$. Symplectic reduction is not applicable and our analysis on linearized stability relies on the notion of approximate eigenvectors. Beyond linear stability, Herman's last geometric theorem allows us to prove the existence of isoenergetically orbitally stable solutions in the case of $N=2$ vortices.

Consider the pendulum equation with an external periodic force and an appropriate condition on the length parameter. It is proved that there exists at least one stable periodic solution for almost every external force with zero average. The stability is understood in the Lyapunov sense.