Integrability for conformally symplectic systems

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to study the dynamics of conformally symplectic Hamiltonian flows under the light of integrability. As the dynamics of conformally symplectic Hamiltonian flows are dissipative and differ fundamentally from their conservative counterpart we start by proposing several notions of integrability that are better suited to the problem. We will propose two notions of integrability: $C^1$-integrability and Hopf integrability, that depend on the existence of a global attractor and on its shape. Then our main theorem focuses on Tonelli Hamiltonians whose conformally symplectic flows do not have conjugate points. We prove that such flows are automatically Hopf integrable. The proof is geometric and studies the long time evolution of vertical subspaces under the flow. It also makes use of (discounted) weak KAM theory. We also establish several results about the asymptotic Maslov index for integrable conformally symplectic Hamiltonian flows. Finally, we describe some examples to illustrate differences between symplectic and conformally symplectic Hamiltonian flows and to illustrate the pertinence of our definitions of integrability.