Degenerate branching points of autonomous Hamiltonian systems. (Q1413261)

This paper concerns the existence of a connected branch of nonstationary periodic trajectories of a general Hamiltonian system, emanating from a degenerate critical point. The assumptions are given in terms of the topological degree of \(\nabla H\) at \(x_0\) and the eigenvalues of \(\nabla ^2 H(x_0)\). Here \(H\) denotes the Hamiltonian function and \(x_0\) the critical point of the system. The proof is based on some results from \textit{E. N. Dancer} and \textit{S. Rybicki} [Differ. Integral Equ. 12, 147--160 (1999; Zbl 1015.34032)]. The starting point is to consider an equivalent problem of bifurcation of \(2\pi\)-periodic solutions from a critical point in a related family of systems.