Aubry-Mather sets and Birkhoff's theorem for geodesic flows on the two- dimensional torus (Q919347)

The author considers the flow associated to a suitable smooth Hamiltonian H on the cotangent bundle \(T^*{\mathbb{T}}^ 2\) of the two-torus. The main result is that if there is an invariant (topological) two-torus L containing no closed orbits of the flow so that L lies in a level set M of H and L is incompressible in M, then L is a (topological) cross- section of \(T^*{\mathbb{T}}^ 2\). This extends the work of the author and \textit{L. V. Polterovich} [Funct. Anal. Appl. 20, 260-266 (1986; translation from Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 20, No.4, 9-16 (1986; Zbl 0641.58032)] from the setting where L is (\({\mathcal C}^ 3)\) smooth to the topological setting, and there is substantial dependence on this previous work. The methods are based on the Aubry-Mather theory of twist symplectomorphisms of the cylinder together with methods of contact geometry.