Asymptotics of ODE's flows everywhere or almost-everywhere in the torus:from rotation sets to homogenization of transport equations

Abstract

In this paper, we study various aspects of the ODE's flow $X$ solution to the equation ${\partial }_{t}X(t,x)=b(X(t,x))$, $X(0,x)=x$ in the $d$-dimensional torus $Y_d$, where $b$ is a regular ${\mathbb{Z}}^d$-periodic vector field from ${\mathbb{R}}^d$ in ${\mathbb{R}}^d$.We present an original and complete picture in any dimension of all logical connections between the following seven conditions involving the field $b$: (i) the everywhere asymptotics of the flow $X$, (ii) the almost-everywhere asymptotics of the flow $X$, (iii) the global rectification of the vector field $b$ in $Y_d$, (iv) the ergodicity of the flow related to an invariant probability measure which is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue's measure, (v) the unit set condition for Herman's rotation set $C_b$ composed of the means of $b$ related to the invariant probability measures, (vi) the unit set condition for the subset $D_b$ of $C_b$ composed of the means of $b$ related to the invariant probability measures which are absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue's measure, (vii) the homogenization of the linear transport equation with oscillating data and the oscillating velocity $b(x/\epsilon )$ when $b$ is divergence free. The main and surprising result of the paper is that the almost-everywhere asymptotics of the flow $X$ and the unit set condition for $D_b$ are equivalent when $D_b$ is assumed to be non empty, and that the two conditions turn to be equivalent to the homogenization of the transport equation when $b$ is divergence free. In contrast, using an elementary approach based on classical tools of PDE's analysis, we extend the two-dimensional results of Oxtoby and Marchetto to any $d$-dimensional Stepanoff flow: this shows that the ergodicity of the flow may hold without satisfying the everywhere asymptotics of the flow.