Steady-State Bifurcation

Abstract

Most research in dynamical systems theory is currently focused on exotic behavior such as chaos. In many applications, however, far simpler kinds of dynamical behavior are of interest — even steady states, in which there is no dynamics, only stasis. By the end of this book we too will be looking at exotic dynamical behavior, with the added ingredient of symmetry; but along the way we will have to rebuild dynamical systems theory from the ground up in the symmetry context. That means starting with steady states — which, for symmetric systems, turn out to be surprisingly interesting and subtle.