KAM theory in configuration space and cancellations in the Lindstedt series

The KAM theorem for analytic quasi-integrable anisochronous Hamiltonian systems yields that the perturbation expansion (Lindstedt series) for any quasi-periodic solution with Diophantine frequency vector converges. If one studies the Lindstedt series by following a perturbation theory approach, one finds that convergence is ultimately related to the presence of cancellations between contributions of the same perturbation order. In turn, this is due to symmetries in the problem. Such symmetries are easily visualised in action-angle coordinates, where KAM theorem is usually formulated, by exploiting the analogy between Lindstedt series and perturbation expansions in quantum field theory and, in particular, the possibility of expressing the solutions in terms of tree graphs, which are the analogue of Feynman diagrams. If the unperturbed system is isochronous, Moser’s modifying terms theorem ensures that an analytic quasi-periodic solution with the same Diophantine frequency vector as the unperturbed Hamiltonian exists for the system obtained by adding a suitable constant (counterterm) to the vector field. Also in this case, one can follow the alternative approach of studying the perturbation expansion for both the solution and the counterterm, and again convergence of the two series is obtained as a consequence of deep cancellations between contributions of the same order. In this paper, we revisit Moser’s theorem, by studying the perturbation expansion one obtains by working in Cartesian coordinates. We investigate the symmetries giving rise to the cancellations which makes possible the convergence of the series. We find that the cancellation mechanism works in a completely different way in Cartesian coordinates, and the interpretation of the underlying symmetries in terms of tree graphs is much more subtle than in the case of action-angle coordinates.