some directions results in the trajectory asymptotically approaching the given one and in other directions to the trajectory getting away from it. There may also be directions for which the behavior of the perturbed orbit is more complicated (neither converging nor escaping completely), and then stability theory does not give sufficient information about the dynamics. One of the key ideas in stability theory is that the qualitative behavior of an orbit under perturbations can be analyzed using the linearization of the system near the orbit. In particular, at each equilibrium of a smooth dynamical system with an n-dimensional phase space, there is a certain n×n matrix A whose eigenvalues characterize the behavior of the nearby points (Hartman–Grobman theorem). More precisely, if all eigenvalues are negative real numbers or complex numbers with negative real parts then the point is a stable attracting fixed point, and the nearby points converge to it at an exponential rate, cf Lyapunov stability and exponential stability. If none of the eigenvalues are purely imaginary (or zero) then the attracting and repelling directions are related to the eigenspaces of the matrix A with eigenvalues whose real part is negative and, respectively, positive. Analogous statements are known for perturbations of more complicated orbits. Stability of fixed points The simplest kind of an orbit is a fixed point, or an equilibrium. If a mechanical system is in a stable equilibrium state then a small push will result in a localized motion, for example, small oscillations as in the case of a pendulum. In a system with damping, a stable equilibrium state is moreover asymptotically stable. On the other hand, for an unstable equilibrium, such as a ball resting on a top of a hill, certain small pushes will result in a motion with a large amplitude that may or may not converge to the original state. There are useful tests of stability for the case of a linear system. Stability of a nonlinear system can often be inferred from the stability of its linearization. Maps Let be a continuously differentiable function with a fixed point , . Consider the dynamical system obtained by iterating the function : The fixed point is stable if the absolute value of the derivative of at is strictly less than 1, and unstable if it is strictly greater than 1. This is because near the point , the function has a linear approximation with