Persistence of stationary motion under explicit symmetry breaking perturbation

Abstract

Explicit symmetry breaking occurs when a dynamical system having a certain symmetry group is perturbed to a system which has strictly less symmetry. We give a geometric approach to study this phenomenon in the setting of Hamiltonian systems. We provide a method for determining the equilibria and relative equilibria that persist after a symmetry breaking perturbation. In particular a lower bound for the number of each is found, in terms of the equivariant Lyusternik-Schnirelmann category of the group orbit.