Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The Parameterization Method is a functional analytic framework for studying invariant manifolds such as stable/unstable manifolds of periodic orbits and invariant tori. This talk will focus on numerical applications such as computing manifolds associated with long periodic orbits, and computing periodic invariant circles (manifolds consisting of several disjoint circles mapping one to another, each of which has an iterate conjugate to an irrational rotation). I will also illustrate how to combine Automatic Differentiation with the Parameterization Method to simplify problems with non-polynomial nonlinearities.

In this talk, I will present new models to describe the evolution of games. Our dynamical system models are inspired by the Fokker-Planck equations on graphs. We will present properties of the models, their connections to optimal transport on graphs, and computational examples for generalized Nash equilibria. This presentation is based on a recent joint work with Professor Shui-Nee Chow and Dr. Wuchen Li.

Dynamical systems have proven to be a useful tool for the design of space missions. For instance, the use of invariant manifolds is now common to design transfer strategies. Solar Sailing is a proposed form of spacecraft propulsion, where large membrane mirrors take advantage of the solar radiation pressure to push the spacecraft. Although the acceleration produced by the radiation pressure is smaller than the one achieved by a traditional spacecraft it is continuous and unlimited. This makes some long term missions more accessible, and opens a wide new range of possible applications that cannot be achieved by a traditional spacecraft. In this presentation we will focus on the dynamics of a Solar sail in a couple of situations. We will introduce this problem focusing on a Solar sail in the Earth-Sun system. In this case, the model used will be the Restricted Three Body Problem (RTBP) plus Solar radiation pressure. The effect of the solar radiation pressure on the RTBP produces a 2D family of "artificial'' equilibria, that can be parametrised by the orientation of the sail. We will describe the dynamics around some of these "artificial'' equilibrium points. We note that, due to the solar radiation pressure, the system is Hamiltonian only for two cases: when the sail is perpendicular to the Sun - Sail line; and when the sail is aligned with the Sun - sail line (i.e., no sail effect). The main tool used to understand the dynamics is the computation of centre manifolds. The second example is the dynamics of a Solar sail close to an asteroid. Note that, in this case, the effect of the sail becomes very relevant due to the low mass of the asteroid. We will use, as a model, a Hill problem plus the effect of the Solar radiation pressure, and we will describe some aspects of the natural dynamics of the sail.