This volume presents new research on normal forms, symmetry, homoclinic cycles, and chaos, from the Workshop on Normal Forms and Homoclinic Chaos held during The Fields Institute Program Year on Dynamical Systems and Bifurcation Theory in November 1992, in Waterloo, Canada. The workshop bridged the local and global analysis of dynamical systems with emphasis on normal forms and the recently discovered homoclinic cycles which may arise in normal forms. Specific topics covered in this volume include normal forms for dissipative, conservative, and reversible vector fields, and for symplectic maps; the effects of symmetry on normal forms; the persistence of homoclinic cycles; symmetry-breaking, both spontaneous and induced; mode interactions; resonances; intermittency; numerical computation of orbits in phase space; applications to flow-induced vibrations and to mechanical and structural systems; general methods for calculation of normal forms; and chaotic dynamics arising from normal forms. Of the 32 presentations given at this workshop, 14 of them are represented by papers in this volume.

An extension of different lectures given by the authors, Local Bifurcations, Center Manifolds, and Normal Forms in Infinite Dimensional Dynamical Systems provides the reader with a comprehensive overview of these topics. Starting with the simplest bifurcation problems arising for ordinary differential equations in one- and two-dimensions, this book describes several tools from the theory of infinite dimensional dynamical systems, allowing the reader to treat more complicated bifurcation problems, such as bifurcations arising in partial differential equations. Attention is restricted to the study of local bifurcations with a focus upon the center manifold reduction and the normal form theory; two methods that have been widely used during the last decades. Through use of step-by-step examples and exercises, a number of possible applications are illustrated, and allow the less familiar reader to use this reduction method by checking some clear assumptions. Written by recognised experts in the field of center manifold and normal form theory this book provides a much-needed graduate level text on bifurcation theory, center manifolds and normal form theory. It will appeal to graduate students and researchers working in dynamical system theory.

This book deals with the qualitative theory of dynamical systems and is devoted to the study of flows and cascades in the vicinity of a smooth invariant manifold. Its main purpose is to present, as completely as possible, the basic results concerning the existence of stable and unstable local manifolds and the recent advancements in the theory of finitely smooth normal forms of vector fields and diffeomorphisms in the vicinity of a rest point and a periodic trajectory. A summary of the results obtained so far in the investigation of dynamical systems near an arbitrary invariant submanifold is also given.

A unified treatment of resonant problems with special emphasis on the recently discovered phenomenon of homoclinic jumping. After a survey of the necessary background, the book develops a general finite dimensional theory of homoclinic jumping, illustrating it with examples. The main mechanism of chaos near resonances is discussed in both the dissipative and the Hamiltonian context, incorporating previously unpublished new results on universal homoclinic bifurcations near resonances, as well as on multi-pulse Silnikov manifolds. The results are applied to a variety of different problems, which include applications from beam oscillations, surface wave dynamics, nonlinear optics, atmospheric science and fluid mechanics.

The aim of the IV International Symposium on Hamiltonian Systems and Celestial Mechanics, HAMSYS-2001 was to join top researchers in the area of Celestial Mechanics, Hamiltonian systems and related topics in order to communicate new results and look forward for join research projects. For PhD students, this meeting offered also the opportunity of personal contact to help themselves in their own research, to call as well and promote the attention of young researchers and graduated students from our scientific community to the above topics, which are nowadays of interest and relevance in Celestial Mechanics and Hamiltonian dynamics. A glance to the achievements in the area in the last century came as a consequence of joint discussions in the workshop sessions, new problems were presented and lines of future research were delineated. Specific discussion topics included: New periodic orbits and choreographies in the n-body problem, singularities in few body problems, central configurations, restricted three body problem, geometrical mechanics, dynamics of charged problems, area preserving maps and Arnold diffusion.

This book collects contributions to the conference" Dynamics, Bifurcation and Symmetry, new trends and new tools", which was held at the Institut d'Etudes Sci entifiques de Cargese (France), September 3-9, 1993. The first aim of this conference was to gather and summarize the work of the European Bifurcation Theory Group after two years of existence (the EBTG links european laboratories in five countries via an EC grant). Thanks to a NATO ARW grant, the conference developed into an international meeting on bifurcation theory and dynamical systems, with the partic ipation of leading specialists not only from Europe but also from overseas countries (Canada, USA, South America). It was a great satisfaction to notice the active, and quite enthusiastic participation of many young scientists. This is reflected in the present book for which many contributors are PhD students or post-doc researchers. Although several "big" themes (bifurcation with symmetry, low dimensional dynam ics, dynamics in EDP's, applications, . . . ) are present in these proceedings, we have divided the book into corresponding parts. In fact these themes overlap in most contributions, which seems to reflect a general tendancy in nonlinear science. I am very pleased to thank for their support the NATO International Exchange Scientific Program as well as the EEC Science Program, which made possible the suc cess of this conference.

In this volume, the authors present a collection of surveys on various aspects of the theory of bifurcations of differentiable dynamical systems and related topics. By selecting these subjects, they focus on those developments from which research will be active in the coming years. The surveys are intended to educate the reader on the recent literature on the following subjects: transversality and generic properties like the various forms of the so-called Kupka-Smale theorem, the Closing Lemma and generic local bifurcations of functions (so-called catastrophe theory) and generic local bifurcations in 1-parameter families of dynamical systems, and notions of structural stability and moduli. - Covers recent literature on various topics related to the theory of bifurcations of differentiable dynamical systems - Highlights developments that are the foundation for future research in this field - Provides material in the form of surveys, which are important tools for introducing the bifurcations of differentiable dynamical systems