Critical points of convex perturbations of quadratic functionals (Q1809029)

The authors consider the problem of the existence of critical points for the function \[ f(x)= \textstyle{{1\over 2}} (Lx,x)+ H(x) \] defined on a Hilbert space, where \(L\) is a closed, densely defined selfadjoint operator on a Hilbert space, whose spectrum is purely discrete and every eigenvalue has a finite multiplicity, while \(H\) is a locally Lipschitz function, unbounded on \(\text{Ker}(L)\). It is proved that if \(H\) is a convex function, the functional \(f\) satisfies a weighted version of the Palais-Smale condition. Then, using some deformation results, the authors achieve new results on the existence of critical points for functionals at resonance. These results are applied to the existence of closed orbits of Hamiltonian systems at resonance.