Stationary and nonstationary, in particular, chaotic states in long Josephson junctions are investigated. Bifurcation lines on the parametric bias current-external magnetic field plane are calculated. The chaos strip along the bifurcation line is observed. It is shown that transitions between stationary states are the transitions from metastable to stable states and that the thermodynamical Gibbs potential of these stable states may be larger than for some metastable states. The definition of a dynamical critical magnetic field characterizing the stability of the stationary states is given.

Dynamical chaos, states stability in long Josephson junctions are investigated from the point of view of the flux quantization. It is shown that the stationary Meissner and fluxon states having integer number of fluxons are stable. Stationary antifluxon states also having integer number of the flux quanta and all other states with half-integer number of flux quenta are unstable. The transitions between all states - Meissner, the states having the integer and half-integer number of the flux quanta - take place in the nonstationary case, and all these states are dynamically equivalent, but the number of the flux quanta is a nonregular time-dependent functions for the chaotic states and regular for the regular ones.