Simple heteroclinic cycles in R^4

In generic dynamical systems heteroclinic cycles are invariant sets of codimension at least one, but they can be structurally stable in systems which are equivariant under the action of a symmetry group, due to the existence of flow-invariant subspaces. For dynamical systems in R^n the minimal dimension for which such robust heteroclinic cycles can exist is n=3. In this case the list of admissible symmetry groups is short and well-known. The situation is different and more interesting when n=4. In this paper we list all finite groups Gamma such that an open set of smooth Gamma-equivariant dynamical systems in R^4 possess a very simple heteroclinic cycle (a structurally stable heteroclinic cycle satisfying certain additional constraints). This work extends the results which were obtained by Sottocornola in the case when all equilibria in the heteroclinic cycle belong to the same Gamma-orbit (in this case one speaks of homoclinic cycles).Comment: 43 pages; submitted to "Nonlinearity

Pattern formation for the Swift-Hohenberg equation on the hyperbolic plane

We present an overview of pattern formation analysis for an analogue of the Swift-Hohenberg equation posed on the real hyperbolic space of dimension two, which we identify with the Poincar\'e disc D. Different types of patterns are considered: spatially periodic stationary solutions, radial solutions and traveling waves, however there are significant differences in the results with the Euclidean case. We apply equivariant bifurcation theory to the study of spatially periodic solutions on a given lattice of D also called H-planforms in reference with the "planforms" introduced for pattern formation in Euclidean space. We consider in details the case of the regular octagonal lattice and give a complete descriptions of all H-planforms bifurcating in this case. For radial solutions (in geodesic polar coordinates), we present a result of existence for stationary localized radial solutions, which we have adapted from techniques on the Euclidean plane. Finally, we show that unlike the Euclidean case, the Swift-Hohenberg equation in the hyperbolic plane undergoes a Hopf bifurcation to traveling waves which are invariant along horocycles of D and periodic in the "transverse" direction. We highlight our theoretical results with a selection of numerical simulations.Comment: Dedicated to Klaus Kirchg\"assne

Bifurcation of hyperbolic planforms

Motivated by a model for the perception of textures by the visual cortex in primates, we analyse the bifurcation of periodic patterns for nonlinear equations describing the state of a system defined on the space of structure tensors, when these equations are further invariant with respect to the isometries of this space. We show that the problem reduces to a bifurcation problem in the hyperbolic plane D (Poincar\'e disc). We make use of the concept of periodic lattice in D to further reduce the problem to one on a compact Riemann surface D/T, where T is a cocompact, torsion-free Fuchsian group. The knowledge of the symmetry group of this surface allows to carry out the machinery of equivariant bifurcation theory. Solutions which generically bifurcate are called "H-planforms", by analogy with the "planforms" introduced for pattern formation in Euclidean space. This concept is applied to the case of an octagonal periodic pattern, where we are able to classify all possible H-planforms satisfying the hypotheses of the Equivariant Branching Lemma. These patterns are however not straightforward to compute, even numerically, and in the last section we describe a method for computation illustrated with a selection of images of octagonal H-planforms.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figure

The Motion of the Spherical Pendulum Subjected to a D_n Symmetric Perturbation

The motion of a spherical pendulum is characterized by the fact that all trajectories are relative periodic orbits with respect to its circle group of symmetry (invariance by rotations around the vertical axis). When the rotational symmetry is broken by some mechanical effect, more complicated, possibly chaotic behavior is expected. When, in particular, the symmetry reduces to the dihedral group D_n of symmetries of a regular n-gon, n > 2, the motion itself undergoes dramatic changes even when the amplitude of oscillations is small, which we intend to explain in this paper. Numerical simulations confirm the validity of the theory and show evidence of new interesting effects when the amplitude of the oscillations is larger (symmetric chaos)

Some theoretical results for a class of neural mass equations

We study the neural field equations introduced by Chossat and Faugeras in their article to model the representation and the processing of image edges and textures in the hypercolumns of the cortical area V1. The key entity, the structure tensor, intrinsically lives in a non-Euclidean, in effect hyperbolic, space. Its spatio-temporal behaviour is governed by nonlinear integro-differential equations defined on the Poincar\'e disc model of the two-dimensional hyperbolic space. Using methods from the theory of functional analysis we show the existence and uniqueness of a solution of these equations. In the case of stationary, i.e. time independent, solutions we perform a stability analysis which yields important results on their behavior. We also present an original study, based on non-Euclidean, hyperbolic, analysis, of a spatially localised bump solution in a limiting case. We illustrate our theoretical results with numerical simulations.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figure

Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation with symmetry

In this paper we study the appearance of branches of relative periodic orbits in Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation processes in the presence of compact symmetry groups that do not generically exist in the dissipative framework. The theoretical study is illustrated with several examples.Comment: 35 pages, 3 figure

A spatialized model of textures perception using structure tensor formalism

International audienceThe primary visual cortex (V1) can be partitioned into fundamental domains or hypercolumns consisting of one set of orientation columns arranged around a singularity or ''pinwheel'' in the orientation preference map. A recent study on the specific problem of visual textures perception suggested that textures may be represented at the population level in the cortex as a second-order tensor, the structure tensor, within a hypercolumn. In this paper, we present a mathematical analysis of such interacting hypercolumns that takes into account the functional geometry of local and lateral connections. The geometry of the hypercolumn is identified with that of the Poincaré disk \D. Using the symmetry properties of the connections, we investigate the spontaneous formation of cortical activity patterns. These states are characterized by tuned responses in the feature space, which are doubly-periodically distributed across the cortex

Heteroclinic cycles in Hopfield networks

Learning or memory formation are associated with the strengthening of the synaptic connections between neurons according to a pattern reflected by the input. According to this theory a retained memory sequence is associated to a dynamic pattern of the associated neural circuit. In this work we consider a class of network neuron models, known as Hopfield networks, with a learning rule which consists of transforming an information string to a coupling pattern. Within this class of models we study dynamic patterns, known as robust heteroclinic cycles, and establish a tight connection between their existence and the structure of the coupling