Publisher's Synopsis
Symmetries are a common feature of real-world phenomena in many fields, including physics, biology, materials science, and engineering. They can help understand the behavior of a system and optimize engineering designs. Nonlinear effects such as delays, nonsmoothness, and hysteresis can have a significant impact on the dynamics and contribute to the increased complexity of symmetric systems. The goal of this book is to provide a complete theoretical and practical manual for studying a large class of dynamical problems with symmetries using degree theory methods. To study the impact of symmetries on the occurrence of periodic solutions in dynamical systems, special variants of the Brouwer degree, the Brouwer equivariant degree, and the twisted equivariant degree are developed to predict patterns, regularities, and symmetries of solutions. Applications to specific dynamical systems and examples are supported by a software package integrated with the GAP system, which provides assistance in the group-theoretic computations involved in equivariant analysis. This book is intended for readers with a basic knowledge of analysis and algebra, including researchers in pure and applied mathematical analysis, graduate students, and scientists interested in areas involving mathematical modeling of symmetric phenomena. The text is self-contained, and the necessary background material is provided in the appendices.
