On the non-persistence of Hamiltonian identity cycles

Abstract

We study the leading term of the holonomy map of a perturbed plane polynomial Hamiltonian foliation. The non-vanishing of this term implies the non-persistence of the corresponding Hamiltonian identity cycle. We prove that this does happen for generic perturbations and cycles, as well for cycles which are commutators in Hamiltonian foliations of degree two. Our approach relies on the Chen's theory of iterated path integrals which we briefly resume.Comment: 17 page