A homotopical index and multiplicity of periodic solutions to dynamical systems with singular potential (Q1196634)

The paper is claimed by the author to have two main purposes: the first one is to establish homotopical index theory which provides critical points for functionals having singularities and a lack of compactness, while the second one is to apply the general abstract results in order to find a multiplicity of periodic solutions to a class of dynamical systems with singular potential. A main property required with respect to the homotopical index is that it is invariant under homotopies of \(\Lambda\) in \(\Lambda\) and is not invariant under homotopies contracting subsets of \(\Lambda\) onto sets of large constant functions, when \(\Lambda\) is the family of continuous functions \(x: \mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}^ N\), such that \(x(t)\neq 0\) for \(t\in [0,T]\), \(x(t)=x(t+T)\) and having distributional derivatives regular and belonging to \(L^ 2_{\text{loc}}\). A general information about the contents of the paper could be given by the titles of sections: Introduction, Some technical preliminaries, The geometrical index of symmetry \(Z_ 2\), The homotopical index related to the geometrical index, Computation of the homotopical index, Application to singular dynamical systems. In the last section the author deals with the question of finding multiple solutions to the problem \(-\ddot x=\nabla F(x)\), \(x(t+T)=x(t)\), \(x(t)\neq 0\) for all \(t\), by applying the results from the first four sections.