Infinite cup length in free loop spaces with an application to a problem of the N-body type (Q1196156)

The paper is concerned with the computation of the Lusternik-Schnirelman category and the cup length of the space \(\Lambda M\) of \(T\)-periodic continuous (or \(H^{1,2}\)-)maps \(\mathbb{R}\to M\) where \(M\) is either \(S^ n\), \(\mathbb{C} P^ n\) or the configuration space \(F_ N(\mathbb{R}^ k)=\{(q_ 1,\dots,q_ N): q_ i\in\mathbb{R}^ k, q_ i\neq q_ j\) for \(i\neq j\}\). Using the Leray-Serre spectral sequences of various path space fibrations it is proved that the cup length of \(\Lambda M\) is infinite if one chooses the correct coefficients for cohomology. As a corollary the authors show that the relative category \(\text{cat}(\Lambda M,\Lambda M')=\infty\) where \(M'\subset M\) are wedges of spheres. Such a topological result has been used by \textit{A. Bahri} and \textit{P. H. Rabinowitz} [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Anal. Non Linéaire 8, No. 6, 561-649 (1991; Zbl 0745.34034)] in order to find periodic solutions of certain singular Hamiltonian systems. The authors also show that the cup length of \(\Lambda_ 0 M\) is infinite where \(\Lambda_ 0 M\) consists of all \(q\in\Lambda M\) with \(q(t+T/2)=-q(t)\); here \(M=F_ N(\mathbb{R}^ k)\). This result is applied in a standard way to find an unbounded sequence of periodic solutions \(q\in\Lambda_ 0 M\) of the singular Hamiltonian system \(m\ddot q+V_ q(q,t)=0\) provided the potential \(V\) is even in \(q\), \(T/2\)-periodic in \(t\) and satisfies the strong force condition.