Poincaré-like approach to landau theory. i. general theory

Abstract

We discuss a procedure to simplify the Landau potential, based on Michel's reduction to orbit space and Poincaré normalization procedure, and illustrate it by concrete examples. The method makes use, as in Poincaré theory, of a chain of near-identity coordinate transformations with homogeneous generating functions; using Michel's insight, one can work in orbit space. It is shown that it is possible to control the choice of generating functions so to obtain a (in many cases, substantial) simplification of the Landau polynomial, including a reduction of the parameters it depends on. Several examples are considered in detail.