Positive subharmonic solutions to superlinear ODEs with indefinite weight (Q1677396)

The author reviews some recent results he has obtained in collaboration with A. Boscaggin and F. Zanolin on the existence and multiplicity of periodic solutions for equations of the type \[ u''+q(t)g(u)=0, \] where \(g(u)\) has a superlinear growth both at zero and at infinity, and \(q(t)\) is a sign-changing periodic function. As a typical example, \(g(u)=u^p\), with \(p>1\). The main interest is on \textit{positive} periodic solutions, of both harmonic and subharmonic type. The proofs involve topological degree methods, and the use of some generalized version of the Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem.