Lower bound on the number of periodic solutions for asymptotically linear planar Hamiltonian systems (Q1633145)

The authors consider the following planar Hamiltonian systems \[ \dot{z}=J D_{z} H(t, z), \] where \(D_{z}\) denotes the gradient with respect to the \(z\)-variable, and \(J=\left(\begin{array}{cc}{0} & {1} \\ {-1} & {0}\end{array}\right)\) with \(H : \mathbb{R}^{2} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) satisfying some asymptotically linear conditions. Based on an argument of topological degree theory, they prove that the above system possesses at least \(\left|i_{\infty}-i_{0}\right|\) \(T\)-periodic solutions and if \(i_{0}\) is even, with \(i_{0}\neq i_{\infty}\), then the number of solution is at least \(\left|i_{\infty}-i_{0}\right|+1\), where \(i_{0}\) and \(i_{\infty}\) are the \(T\)-Maslov indices of \(\mathbb{A}(t)\), \(\mathbb{B}(t) \in \mathcal{C}\left([0, T], \mathbb{R}^{2 \times 2}\right)\) respectively, while \(\mathbb{A}(t)=D_{z z} H(t, 0)\) and \[ \lim _{\|z\| \rightarrow+\infty} \frac{\left\|D_{z} H(t, z)-\mathbb{B}(t) z\right\|}{\|z\|}=0\quad \text{uniformly in \(t\).} \] This results give an answer to the conjecture by \textit{C. Conley} and \textit{E. Zehnder} [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 37, 207--253 (1984; Zbl 0559.58019)] on the lower bound of \(T\)-periodic solutions. Moreover, the authors prove that this lower bound on the number of periodic solutions is sharp. Finally, they consider a more general condition of linear-like behaviour at both zero and infinity instead of the asymptotic linearity.