On the structure of critical energy levels for the cubic focusing NLS on star graphs

Abstract

We provide information on a non trivial structure of phase space of the cubic NLS on a three-edge star graph. We prove that, contrarily to the case of the standard NLS on the line, the energy associated to the cubic focusing Schr\"odinger equation on the three-edge star graph with a free (Kirchhoff) vertex does not attain a minimum value on any sphere of constant $L^2$-norm. We moreover show that the only stationary state with prescribed L^2-norm is indeed a saddle point