Accurate Computations up to Breakdown of Quasi-Periodic Attractors in the Dissipative Spin–Orbit Problem

Abstract We consider a Celestial Mechanics model: the spin–orbit problem with a dissipative tidal torque, which is a singular perturbation of a conservative system. The goal of this paper is to show that it is possible to maintain the accuracy and reliability of the computation of quasi-periodic attractors for parameter values extremely close to the breakdown and, therefore, it is possible to obtain information on the breakdown mechanism of these quasi-periodic attractors. The method uses at the same time numerical and rigorous improvements to provide (i) a very accurate computation of the time-1 map of the spin–orbit problem (which reduces the dimensionality of the problem); (ii) a very efficient KAM method for maps which computes the attractor and its tangent spaces (by quadratically convergent, low storage requirements, and low operation count); (iii) explicit algorithms backed by a rigorous a posteriori KAM theorem, which establishes that if the algorithm is successful and produces a small residual, then there is a true solution nearby; and (iv) guaranteed algorithms to reach arbitrarily close to the border of existence as long as there are enough computer resources. As a by-product of the accuracy that we maintain till breakdown, we study several scale-invariant observables of the tori used in the renormalization group of infinite-dimensional spaces. In contrast with previously studied simple models, the behavior at breakdown of the spin–orbit problem does not satisfy standard scaling relations which implies that the spin–orbit problem is not described by a hyperbolic fixed point of the renormalization operator.