Emergence and Bifurcations of Lyapunov Manifolds in Nonlinear Wave Equations

Persistence and bifurcations of Lyapunov manifolds can be studied by a combination of averaging-normalization and numerical bifurcation methods. This can be extended to infinite-dimensional cases when using suitable averaging theorems. The theory is applied to the case of a parametrically excited wave equation. We find fast dynamics in a finite, resonant part of the spectrum and slow dynamics elsewhere. The resonant part corresponds with an almost-invariant manifold and displays bifurcations into a wide variety of phenomena among which are 2- and 3-tori.