Papers

In 2023, Richard Schwartz introduced a new dynamical system which is a marriage of two types of familiar billiards, tiling billiards and symplectic billiards. In this paper we investigate this dynamical system played on tilings of the plane which arise from non-Euclidean geometries on the torus. We review the affine analogue of the flat conformal structures on the torus through the work of Oliver Baues and William Goldman, and define an open subset of this deformation space corresponding to markings of complete affine tilings of the plane. We make this definition precise, and provide algebraic conditions on the symmetries of the tiling to define it. We then analyze the dynamics of symplectic tiling billiards played on these types of tilings and investigate the long-term dynamics of the system to prove a stability result concerning divergent trajectories. The divergence is defined in terms of geometric invariants arising from the tiling symmetry group. We argue that in some sense this divergence is a consequence of the tiles of a non-Euclidean tiling becoming 'thin' as one moves far away in the tiling. To do so we introduce a notion of thinness that is well adapted to the non-Euclidean affine tilings.

In this paper, we show that shadowing and inverse shadowing are generic properties for spaces in which there exists an $\varepsilon$-retraction onto a graph for any $\varepsilon>0$.

In this paper, we consider the slow passage through a Hopf in $\mathbb R^3$ in a certain class of real-analytic systems. Classically, the (simplified) Shishkova problem: $\epsilon \frac{dz}{d\mu} = \lambda(\mu) z+\mathcal O(\epsilon)$, $\lambda(\mu) = \mu-\i$, has been used to illustrate the delay associated with slow passage through a Hopf at $\mu=0$. In this paper, we consider a general $\lambda(\mu)$ with $\lambda(0)\in i\mathbb R\setminus \{0\}$, $\real[\lambda'(0)]\ne 0$, and add an equation for the complex conjugate. It is a basic fact that these systems are local normal forms for any real-analytic $(1,2)$ slow-fast system in $\mathbb R^3$ experiencing slow passage through a Hopf. In this paper, we study these systems under additional (global) assumptions on $\lambda$. In particular, we suppose that $\lambda$ has a simple zero away from the real axis. The remaining assumptions then relate to invariant manifolds of the so-called elliptic system $\dot \mu = -\i\overline{\lambda(\mu)}$ as well as properties of the level set $\operatorname{Re}[\i{\lambda(\mu)}{\lambda(\overline \mu)}]=0$. Under these assumptions, we then provide an asymptotic formula for the exponentially small splitting of attracting and repelling slow manifolds. As a corollary, we also obtain an asymptotic formula for the maximal delay. Our approach is geometric and is inspired by the work of Hayes et al (2016) (using blowup) and Neishtadt (1987,1988) (using so-called elliptic paths) but also by recent work of the second author on exponentially small splitting in unfoldings of the zero-Hopf bifurcation.

The topological Halmos–von Neumann theorem is a fundamental result of topological dynamics that completely classifies continuous actions of abelian topological groups which are ergodic and have discrete spectrum. It rests on a correspondence between such actions (up to the choice of a distinguished point), compactifications of the acting group and subgroups of its dual group. We generalize both the classical statement and the underlying categorical equivalences to the framework of open group bundles over locally compact base spaces. As a byproduct, we establish a Pontryagin-type duality between étale Hausdorff abelian group bundles and open proper Hausdorff abelian group bundles, extending the classical duality between discrete and compact abelian groups.

In this work, we show how heteroclinic networks can arise in a simple class of network dynamical systems through the application of the Invariant Sphere Theorem. Ring-coupled systems are ODE networks in $\mathbb{R}^n$ in which each variable $x_i$ interacts only with its predecessor $x_{i-1}$. We derive conditions on the coefficients of a cubic polynomial that guarantee the existence of a globally attracting invariant sphere via the Invariant Sphere Theorem. Moreover, setting one of these coefficients to zero, we identify conditions on the remaining coefficients that guarantee the existence of a heteroclinic network on the invariant sphere. Focusing on the case $n=3$, we investigate perturbations of the vanishing coefficient in a neighbourhood of the heteroclinic network. Under such perturbations, the heteroclinic network is destroyed and periodic orbits emerge. When the original heteroclinic network is asymptotically stable, the resulting periodic orbits shadow the network. In one parameter regime, a unique attracting periodic orbit appears and shadows the entire heteroclinic network. By contrast, when the heteroclinic network is not stable, repelling periodic orbits arise that shadow only part of the heteroclinic structure, namely half of the heteroclinic connections. Symmetry plays a fundamental role throughout the analysis. Exploiting the symmetries of the system, we reduce the heteroclinic network to two homoclinic orbits. Furthermore, the local dynamics near the heteroclinic network can be studied on a quotient space consisting of an annulus attached to a Möbius band, with each homoclinic orbit lying on one of these components. This reduction provides a geometric framework for understanding the bifurcations and the emergence of the periodic dynamics.

In this paper, we provide new explicit examples of semitoric systems. More precisely, for any natural number $n$, we give a semtioric moment map $F_n$ with $2n$ focus-focus singularities defined on a symplectic manifold $(M_n,\omega_n)$ of diffeomorphism type $\mathbb{CP}^2\sharp(2n+1)\overline{\mathbb{CP}}{}^2$.

This paper explores the use of a reduced manifold space initialization method for the generation of both time and fuel optimal many-revolution, low-thrust transfers between three-body periodic orbits within a family. Libration point orbit families are approximated by multi-segment Chebyshev polynomials and 1-dimensional Fourier series. Control is mapped into the family space, and a 1-dimensional targeting scheme in the family space dynamics is used to generate an initial guess for the phase space, directly accounting for winding. An integral collocation-based direct method is then used to first continue a feasible trajectory into the phase space, and then optimize for a particular cost function. The methodology is first applied to the distant retrograde orbit family. Modifications for time-regularized dynamics are then discussed, with an ensuing example of many-revolution transfers in the $L_2$ halo family.

We study the bifurcation of two-dimensional Darcy-Bénard convection (DBC) in a rectangular domain, a canonical model for thermal convection in porous media with applications in geophysics and engineering. The momentum equation lacks advection and viscous dissipation, being regularized solely by a linear Darcy damping term. As a result, the linearized operator generates a semigroup that is neither analytic nor compact and the nonlinear term fails to be Lipschitz. The system is thus placed outside the scope of the standard center-manifold theorem. To overcome these obstructions, we develop a center-manifold reduction adapted to DBC system. Our main result is a constructive proof of the existence of the center manifold function h and local attractivity of the center manifold-the exponential convergence of small solutions toward it-without relying on analyticity of the full linear semigroup and Lipschitz nonlinearity. We circumvent these difficulties by exploiting the partially dissipative structure: the temperature equation is governed by the Laplacian, which generates an analytic semigroup and provides the smoothing needed to compensate for the lack of regularity in the velocity and the absence of global Lipschitz bounds. Through carefully designed inequalities, we establish both the construction of the center manifold function h and the exponential convergence of nearby solutions. Explicit approximations for the center manifold are derived in two scenarios-one simple eigenvalue and two distinct eigenvalues-yielding reduced systems of ordinary differential equations whose analysis determines the bifurcation type. Numerical simulations are presented to corroborate the theoretical results.

We study linear cocycles over ergodic translations of the two-torus acting on Hermitian vector bundles described by unitary sewing matrices. For a continuous invariant complex line subbundle $L$, we prove that $c_1(L) \ne 0$ obstructs every nonzero measurable eigensection under a measurable phase-coboundary condition. The abstract obstruction holds in every rank, while for rank-two analytic cocycles with a dominated splitting over a Diophantine translation the phase condition is automatic. In that regime the criterion is exact: $L$ carries a nonzero measurable eigensection if and only if $c_1(L)=0$ and the winding vector of the multiplier phase vanishes. When these conditions hold, the realized eigenvalues form a dense coset on a circle; for each such eigenvalue, the eigenspace carried by $L$ is one-dimensional and has a real-analytic nowhere-vanishing generator. We also construct a Liouville example showing that the Diophantine hypothesis cannot be removed. The proof converts the Chern number into a magnetic charge on the universal cover and applies covariance for irrational magnetic translations.

We study a distinguished one dimensional restriction associated with planar vector fields whose linearization is a nonzero nilpotent matrix of index two. This restriction admits an intrinsic interpretation on the nilpotent eigendirection, while its scalar representation in Jordan coordinates satisfies a simple transformation law under admissible changes of Jordan chain. Its quadratic Taylor coefficient coincides with the intrinsic quadratic Bogdanov–Takens coefficient. % For rational restrictions, we show that the Taylor coefficient sequence satisfies a finite linear recurrence determined by the minimal denominator. Its degree defines a recurrence degree that is invariant under admissible changes of Jordan chain and gives the minimal order of an eventual homogeneous recurrence. Exact cancellations may therefore be detected directly from the restriction before nonlinear normal form transformations are performed. Applications to four planar models exhibit different recurrence degree and cancellation mechanisms, illustrating the complementarity between the distinguished restriction and smooth nilpotent normal form theory.

We study a nonautonomous compartmental model on the probability simplex for radical vote-share dynamics under delayed policy implementation. The model distinguishes a target regime from an effective regime that adjusts with finite speed and includes a persistent alienation reservoir that can later be mobilised by radical actors. In a symmetric benchmark, persistent alienation destroys the global one-threshold picture: below the local instability threshold, a radical-free centrist–alienated equilibrium may coexist with a stable positive equilibrium, separated by a saddle branch created in a saddle-node bifurcation. By hyperbolic persistence, this coexistence survives near the symmetric baseline, while numerical exploration identifies a wider bistable region under asymmetric perturbations. Delayed implementation further separates target and effective threshold passage, producing a parameter-space lag and an additional state-space lag before a visible response in radical support. The analysis combines a Perron–Frobenius threshold for the frozen radical-free equilibrium, a geometric characterisation of positive equilibria, local adiabatic tracking under slow uniformly subcritical drift, and explicit delay bounds for transversal threshold passage. Under initial matching, the parameter-space delay scales as \(O(\kappa_\theta^{-1})\); in a monotone ramp example the bound is nearly attained, whereas the state-space lag is substantially larger and less sensitive to implementation speed. Thus threshold restoration is preventive rather than curative: once the trajectory enters the basin of the radicalised attractor, returning below the local threshold need not restore the radical-free regime.

Anosov flows have a long and rich history, firstly motivated by the study of geodesic flows in negative curvature surface by Anosov and Sinai. Not every closed manifold admits an Anosov flow for well-known reasons: the fundamental group of a 3-manifold \(M\) admitting an Anosov flow must have exponential growth, and \(M\) must be universally covered by \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\). Nevertheless, there are sufficient mechanisms for constructing distinct Anosov flows on admissible 3-manifolds, such as Dehn-Goodman-Fried surgery or playing with hyperbolic building blocks. A central problem in the field has been to determine the number of Anosov flows that can be supported by a single manifold. The question of whether there exists an infinite set of pairwise non-equivalent Anosov flows on a 3-manifold remains open to this day. However, there are several papers proving the existence of a manifold $M_n$ that admits $n$ pairwise inequivalent Anosov flows for any natural number $n$. In all known examples, the manifolds $M_n$ are composed of several geometric pieces. In the present paper, we prove the existence of a countable number of graph manifolds $M_{k,n}$, $k \in \mathbb{N}$ with a single geometric piece, each of which admits $n$ pairwise non-equivalent transitive Anosov flows. All previously known constructions of different flows on the same graph manifold were based on gluing geodesic flows. The nature of the flows constructed in this paper is completely different; they are constructed from a single hyperbolic plug, which is a suspension over a Morse-Smale diffeomorphism on a surface.

Recent research grounded in experiments has connected neural ring models of vision to how animals navigate a complex landscape of attractive targets. In this paper we investigate the mathematical and biological implications of a three-stage model where animals pre-process visual stimuli to identify a discrete set of targets, process this input to select the dominant targets, and then post-process this information to navigate the landscape. Incorporating finite target sizes and a neural density allows consistent target acquisition and pursuit reflecting what is seen in nature. Mathematically, we show this model corresponds to an energy minimization problem, simplifying both its analysis and numerical implementation. Biologically, we argue that the model is physiologically motivated, reproduces experimental observations, and presents a fairly direct pathway to decoding neural geometry via empirical data. Our results also demonstrate an analysis pipeline for future model extensions and suggest specific avenues for experimental research to test and parameterize our quantitative framework.

It is well known that a finite-dimensional linear system cannot be chaotic. In this article, it shows that Devaney chaos with the weak topology can be generated by a linear map, where the weak topology into a two-dimensional Euclidean space is induced by a linear functional. Especially, it gives the equivalent conditions to be strongly transitive (weakly transitive, strongly sensitive,weakly sensitive, dense periodic points, respectively). Besides, we show that for a matrix with two conjugate complex eigenvalues, strong transitivity (sensitivity, respectively) is equivent to weak transitivity (sensitivity, respectively), which does not hold if we consider a matrix with two real eigenvalues. Finally, in two-dimensional space with weak topology, we show that weak transitivity and weak density of periodic points do not imply weak sensitivity and that weak transitivity and fixed point do not imply Li-Yorke chao, which show that there is a significant difference between the dynamic properties of weak topology and the dynamic properties of norm topology.

In this paper, we study the dependence of the propagation speed on the diffusion ratio in a Lotka-volterra competition-diffusion system under strong competition. The model is known to admits a unique monotone travelling front connecting two exclusion equilibria and the sign of its speed determines which species invades the territory occupied by the other. We establish smoothness results for the wave speed and the wave profile. Our main result shows that the wave speed is a strictly decreasing function of the diffusion ratio on explicit unbounded regions of parameter space. This monotonicity had been observed numerically but, had not previously been proved. The proof combines the smooth dependence of both the travelling front and its speed on the diffusion ratio, an adjoint identity for the linearized operator and a maximum principle argument. At zero speed, we also prove that there exists a smooth threshold, we obtain an exact formula for its derivative and deduce its monotonicity. These threshold results also provide a complete characterization of the sign of the wave speed.

We construct the first examples of one-dimensional long-range crystals exhibiting arbitrarily fast polynomial dispersive bounds. The Floquet functions of our Hamiltonians are highly oscillatory Weierstrass functions, whose rough autosimilar structure drives the fast dispersion. The proof develops a new Fourier decay theory for $C^\alpha$ images of the Lebesgue measure, based on a Dolgopyat-inspired transfer operator method, and yields a van der Corput lemma for Weierstrass functions. As a consequence, the local time of classical Weierstrass functions of sufficiently large lacunarity exists and is $C^k$, answering a question raised by Geman and Horowitz in 1980.

This blueprint serves as a companion to a forthcoming, shorter traditional mathematical paper. The purpose of this blueprint is two-fold: first, it has served as the foundation for a formalization in Lean 4 of these results. This formalization has been completed largely automatically, making essential use of current frontier large language models. Second, it will serve as a resource to readers of the main paper who are interested in further technical details of the proofs. The main result concerns norm-variation estimates for multiple ergodic averages associated with $n\ge 2$ commuting measure preserving transformations, providing a quantitative strengthening of Tao's norm-convergence theorem and answering an open question of Avigad and Rute. At the core of the analysis lies an explicit real-variable estimate for twisted multilinear averages that is closely related to certain singular Brascamp–Lieb inequalities.

We show that if $G$ is a real semisimple Lie group and $\Gamma<G$ is a discrete subgroup with slow growth, in the sense that its growth indicator function is smaller than $\rho$, then $\Gamma$ acts totally dissipatively on the Furstenberg boundary of $G$. Moreover, for $G= SO(n,2)$ and $n\geq 3$, we construct infinite-covolume discrete subgroups that act ergodically on the Furstenberg boundary of $G$, providing a counterexample to a conjecture of Margulis for $G = SO(n,2), n > 2$. The examples arise from lattices $\Gamma<H= SO(n,1)$ and their deformations in $G$. Perhaps more importantly, we describe a new approach to studying deformations of such lattices by relating them to deformations of the smooth right-translation action of $SO(n-1,1)$ on $\Gamma\backslash H$. This correspondence allows us to apply recent results of DeWitt and Dolgopyat on smooth group actions and to give examples where the right-translation action of $SO(n-1,1)$ on $\Gamma\backslash H$ can fail to be $C^0$-locally rigid.

In this paper, we investigate first- and second-order alignment models with non-universal interaction, time delays and possible communication failures, extending the results in [17] to interaction digraphs that are only assumed to be rooted and to a weaker Persistence Excitation Condition. In particular, we allow the amount of interaction over time intervals of fixed length to decay polynomially in time. For the first-order Hegselmann-Krause type model, we prove asymptotic convergence to consensus under a suitable condition relating the decay exponent of the communication weights to the maximal distance from the root. For the second-order Cucker-Smale model, we establish asymptotic flocking under an additional assumption on the decay of the influence function. These results show that collective behavior can still emerge under progressively weakening communication and without requiring strong connectivity of the interaction graph.

Biological reaction networks often exhibit complex transient behavior that cannot be explained solely by the analysis of steady states or long-term persistence. Existing structural approaches identify persistent system properties and have considered transitions between organizations, but do not provide a general criterion for admissible transitions between arbitrary species configurations. We introduce admissible transitions, a new structural concept that describes feasible changes between species subsets using only reaction network structure and feasible reaction fluxes, independently of kinetic parameters. We prove that solutions of reaction-based ordinary differential equation systems induce canonical sequences of admissible transitions with a fundamental asymmetry: closure-building transitions are uniquely determined by network structure, whereas downward transitions are generally non-unique and depend on the realized trajectory. This establishes a structural layer linking network topology to transient system evolution. The framework is illustrated using a classical HIV immune-response model. By extending structural reaction network analysis from persistent states to transient dynamics, the proposed theory provides a general, kinetics-independent framework for analyzing reachability, organization formation, and transient behavior in biological systems.

This paper establishes that the system of ordinary differential equations arising from the sequential and distributive dual futile cycle has the structural capacity for Hopf bifurcations, whenever it is endowed with general parameter-rich kinetics, but it loses such capacity if it is endowed with mass action kinetics. The proof of the latter fact relies on a Routh-Hurwitz approach, improved by few preliminary structural considerations, but a decisive contribution came from ChatGPT Sol 5.6, which provided a nontrivial positivity certificate. A second purpose of the paper is indeed to document such AI-contribution, exploiting this well-studied toy-model, and to offer an example of the utilizability of such tools in the context of computer algebra and positivity certificates for large polynomials.

We establish quantitative rigidity results for pseudo-rotations of the two-torus under a $(C,\delta)$-deviation condition relative to their rotation vectors. The main ingredient is a quantitative free-disk estimate that converts bounds on orbit deviation into explicit control of the distance between the iterates and the identity map. Under such a $(C,\delta)$-deviation condition, we show that Hölder continuous super-Liouvillean irrational pseudo-rotations are $C^0$-rigid with an exponential decay rate and that $C^k$ semi-irrational pseudo-rotations of strong non-Brjuno type exhibit $C^{k-1}$-rigidity with a superpolynomial decay rate. Moreover, under this deviation condition and sufficiently large irrationality measure, we show that Hölder continuous skew products on $\mathbb{T}^2$ over circle rotations are $C^0$-rigid with a polynomial decay rate. As a consequence, all these classes satisfy Sarnak's conjecture.

We study i.i.d.\ random compositions of cusp tent-like interval maps having a common cusp point and a common cusp value. For cusp exponents $-1<\beta<-\frac12$, we prove that the associated annealed transfer operators have a spectral gap on $W^{1,1}(I)$ and $W^{2,1}(I)$. For all sufficiently small perturbations of the probability law, there is a stationary density $h_\varepsilon\in W^{2,1}(I)$, unique among stationary densities belonging to $W^{1,1}(I)$. Moreover, the map $\varepsilon\mapsto h_\varepsilon$ is differentiable at $\varepsilon=0$ in $W^{1,1}(I)$, and we obtain an explicit linear response formula.

We prove that for any given frequency resonance exponent and phase resonance exponent, there exist a frequency and a phase exactly realizing these values such that the Almost Mathieu operator exhibits Anderson localization for $\ln|\lambda|>\max\{\beta(\alpha),\delta(\alpha,\theta)\}$. This resolves the conjecture in \cite{MR4686650}.

We prove, modulo almost one-to-one extensions, that the topological rational Kronecker factors of a minimal $\mathbb{Z}^k$-system are the topological characteristic factors for commuting transformations along polynomials with distinct degrees. As an application, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the joint transitivity of these polynomial iterates.

We study the relation between $\NilBohr{d}$ sets and $\SG_d^*$ sets. We prove that every $\NilBohr{d}$ set is an $\SG_d^*$ set, answering a question of Host and Kra. More generally, for a compact Hausdorff distal system whose Ellis group admits a closed filtration \[ E=E_1\supseteq E_2\supseteq\cdots\supseteq E_{d+1}=\{e\}, \ [E_j,E]\subseteq E_{j+1}, \] we prove that every return time set is an $\SG_d^*$ set.

We show that there exists a suspension flow defined over the full shift map which does not have local product structure. This gives a negative answer to an open problem posed by Gelfert-Kwietniak-Lima recently.

We prove that a strongly nondegenerate Reeb vector field on a closed contact three-manifold has infinitely many simple positive hyperbolic periodic orbits if it has at least three simple periodic orbits. The main ingredient is a result for area-preserving maps on compact surfaces, possibly with boundary. We prove that, under a natural boundary index condition, an area-preserving nondegenerate map with infinitely many periodic points has infinitely many positive hyperbolic periodic points in the interior. The proof combines this surface result with the broken book decomposition theorem of Colin–Dehornoy–Rechtman.

The aim of this work is to provide a rigorous mathematical analysis of a well-known SIS epidemic model with a saturating contact rate. First, we establish the global asymptotic stability (GAS) of the model's equilibria by employing a suitable Lyapunov function in combination with the Poincaré–Bendixson theorem and the Bendixson–Dulac criterion. The resulting GAS results improve upon previous findings for this SIS model and may also be applicable to its extensions with more general saturating contact rates. Second, we construct families of first- and second-order nonstandard finite difference (NSFD) schemes that preserve the positivity and asymptotic stability properties of the SIS model for arbitrary step sizes. All these schemes are formulated within Mickens' framework; however, compared with their first-order counterparts, the second-order schemes employ a more elaborate construction that combines a weighted nonlocal approximation of the right-hand side with suitably renormalized denominator functions. The weighted nonlocal approximation guarantees dynamic consistency, whereas the denominator functions ensure second-order convergence. Finally, we conduct numerical experiments to validate the theoretical results and demonstrate the advantages of the proposed NSFD schemes. The numerical results are in good agreement with the theoretical results. The approach developed in this work is applicable not only to other epidemiological systems but also, more generally, to mathematical models arising in a wide range of real-world applications.

In this paper, we study a slow-fast model of Intracellular Calcium Concentrations (ICC) within a stochastic framework, where stochastic perturbations are introduced to capture the intrinsic randomness of such biological systems. We first analyse the three-dimensional single-cell model, based on the FitzHugh-Nagumo structure, and subsequently extend the analysis to a coupled two-cell six-dimensional setting. We prove existence and uniqueness of solutions and establish positivity of the calcium variable. We obtain explicit mean-square stability estimates around deterministic equilibria and quantify how they depend on the noise intensity. Numerical simulations for both the single-cell and coupled systems illustrate relevant qualitative behaviours and reveal additional dynamical features arising in the stochastic framework.