On the Integrability of Tonelli Hamiltonians

In this article we discuss a weaker version of Liouville's theorem on the integrability of Hamiltonian systems. We show that in the case of Tonelli Hamiltonians the involution hypothesis on the integrals of motion can be completely dropped and still interesting information on the dynamics of the system can be deduced. Moreover, we prove that on the n-dimensional torus this weaker condition implies classical integrability in the sense of Liouville. The main idea of the proof consists in relating the existence of independent integrals of motion of a Tonelli Hamiltonian to the size of its Mather and Aubry sets. As a byproduct we point out the existence of non-trivial common invariant sets for all Hamiltonians that Poisson-commute with a Tonelli one.Comment: 19 pages. Version accepted by Trans. Amer. Math. So

A variational approach to the study of the existence of invariant Lagrangian graphs

This paper surveys some results by the author and collaborators on the existence of invariant Lagrangian graphs for Tonelli Hamiltonian systems. The presentation is based on an invited talk by the author at XIX Congresso Unione Matematica Italiana (Bologna, 12-17 Sept. 2011).Comment: 28 page

Nearly circular domains which are integrable close to the boundary are ellipses

The Birkhoff conjecture says that the boundary of a strictly convex integrable billiard table is necessarily an ellipse. In this article, we consider a stronger notion of integrability, namely integrability close to the boundary, and prove a local version of this conjecture: a small perturbation of an ellipse of small eccentricity which preserves integrability near the boundary, is itself an ellipse. This extends the result in [1], where integrability was assumed on a larger set. In particular, it shows that (local) integrability near the boundary implies global integrability. One of the crucial ideas in the proof consists in analyzing Taylor expansion of the corresponding action-angle coordinates with respect to the eccentricity parameter, deriving and studying higher order conditions for the preservation of integrable rational caustics.Comment: 64 pages, 3 figures. Final revised version, to appear on Geometric and Functional Analysis (GAFA

Computing Mather's \beta-function for Birkhoff billiards

This article is concerned with the study of Mather's \beta-function associated to Birkhoff billiards. This function corresponds to the minimal average action of orbits with a prescribed rotation number and, from a different perspective, it can be related to the maximal perimeter of periodic orbits with a given rotation number, the so-called Marked length spectrum. After having recalled its main properties and its relevance to the study of the billiard dynamics, we stress its connections to some intriguing open questions: Birkhoff conjecture and the isospectral rigidity of convex billiards. Both these problems, in fact, can be conveniently translated into questions on this function. This motivates our investigation aiming at understanding its main features and properties. In particular, we provide an explicit representation of the coefficients of its (formal) Taylor expansion at zero, only in terms of the curvature of the boundary. In the case of integrable billiards, this result provides a representation formula for the \beta-function near 0. Moreover, we apply and check these results in the case of circular and elliptic billiards.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1203.127

Lecture notes on Mather's theory for Lagrangian systems

These are introductory lecture notes on Mather's theory for Tonelli Lagrangian and Hamiltonian systems. They are based on a series of lectures given by the author at Universit\`a degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" (April 2009), at University of Cambridge (academic year 2009-2010) and at Universitat Polit\`ecnica de Catalunya (June 2010).Comment: 72 pages, 3 figure

Action minimizing properties and distances on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms

In this article we prove that for a smooth fiberwise convex Hamiltonian, the asymptotic Hofer distance from the identity gives a strict upper bound to the value at 0 of Mather's $\beta$ function, thus providing a negative answer to a question asked by K. Siburg in \cite{Siburg1998}. However, we show that equality holds if one considers the asymptotic distance defined in \cite{Viterbo1992}.Comment: 21pp, accepted for publication in Geometry & Topolog