Perturbations of Superintegrable Systems

A superintegrable system has more integrals of motion than degrees d of freedom. The quasi-periodic motions then spin around tori of dimension n < d. Already under integrable perturbations almost all n-tori will break up; in the non-degenerate case the resulting d-tori have n fast and d −n slow frequencies. Such d-parameter families of d-tori do survive Hamiltonian perturbations as Cantor families of d-tori. A perturbation of a superintegrable system that admits a better approximation by a non-degenerate integrable perturbation of the superintegrable system is said to remove the degeneracy. In the minimal case d = n+1 this can be achieved by means of averaging, but the more integrals of motion the superintegrable system admits the more difficult becomes the perturbation analysis.