Middle dimensional symplectic rigidity and its effect on Hamiltonian PDEs

Abstract

In the first part of the article we study Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of ${\mathbb{R}}^{2n}$ which are generated by sub-quadratic Hamiltonians and prove a middle dimensional rigidity result for the image of coisotropic cylinders. The tools that we use are Viterbo’s symplectic capacities and a series of inequalities coming from their relation with symplectic reduction. In the second part we consider the nonlinear string equation and treat it as an infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system. In this context we are able to apply Kuksin’s approximation by finite dimensional Hamiltonian flows and prove a PDE version of the rigidity result for coisotropic cylinders. As a particular example, this result can be applied to the sine-Gordon equation.