A generalized version of the Birkhoff-Kellogg theorem (Q1822341)

The paper gives a generalization of the classical Birkhoff-Kellogg theorem: If \((X,\|\|)\) is an infinite-dimensional normed space, D is a bounded neighbourhood of 0 in X and \(F: \partial D\to X\) is a compact operator such that \(0\not\in F(\partial D)\), then F has a positive eigenvalue, i.e. there is \(\lambda >0\), \(x\in \partial D\) such that \(F(x)=\lambda x.\) The above result has no finite-dimensional analogue. However it is known that there is no non-vanishing tangent vector field on \(S^ n\), unless \(n\equiv 1 (mod 2)\) (Poincaré-Bohl theorem). The author gives a theorem which covers both of these results. It was done via the generalized Leray-Schauder index theory and by means of the introduced notion of a flat neighborhood. If X is a topological vector space then a neighborhood D of 0 in X is called flat if the set \(A_ D=\cap_{t>0}tD\) is a closed vector subspace of X and \(A_{D+A_ D}=A_ D.\) It appears that any bounded or convex symmetric neighborhood in a locally convex space X is flat. The main result is the following: If X is an admissible topological vector space, D is a closed flat neighborhood and \(F: \partial D\to X\) is a compact map such that \(A_ D\cap F(\partial D)=\emptyset\), then (i) when \(\dim (X/A_ D)=\infty\), then F has at least two different eivenvalues; (ii) when \(\dim (X/A_ D)\equiv 1\) (mod 2), then F has an eigenvalue. Several other results in this direction were proved and an application for integral equations was given.