Lagrangian block diagonalization

Abstract

Relative equilibria, i.e., steady motions associated to specified group motions, are an important class of steady motions of Hamiltonian and Lagrangian systems with symmetry. Relative equilibria can be identified by means of a variational principle on the tangent space of the configuration manifold. We show that relative equilibria can also be found by means of a variational principle on the configuration manifold itself. Formal stability of a relative equilibrium corresponds to definiteness of the second variation of the energymomentum functional, which is a specified combination of the total energy and the group momentum, on an appropriate subspace. We decompose this subspace into three subspaces by means of the Legendre transformation and the group action and show that the second variation block diagonalizes with respect to these subspaces. The techniques employed here are a generalization of the reduced energy-momentum method of Simoet al. (1991), which applies only to simple mechanical systems, to a more general class of conservative systems, including systems on which the symmetry group does not act freely. We briefly discuss a generalization of a result due to Patrick (1990) that provides conditions under which formal stability implies nonlinear orbital stability. Several simple examples, including natural mechanical systems, are used to illustrate the block diagonalization procedure.