The equivariant spectral flow and bifurcation of periodic solutions of Hamiltonian systems (Q2048342)

The authors define a spectral flow for paths of selfadjoint Fredholm operators that are equivariant under the orthogonal action of a compact Lie group as an element of the representation ring of the latter. This G-equivariant spectral flow shares all common properties of the integer valued classical spectral flow, and it can be non-trivial even if the classical spectral flow vanishes. Moreover, the authors use the G-equivariant spectral flow to study bifurcation of periodic solutions for autonomous Hamiltonian systems with symmetries. This work has some novelty. The derived results enrich the bifurcation theory of differential equation.