Spectral flow, Brouwer degree and Hill's determinant formula (Q2189804)

The paper presents a definition of a new topological invariant, defined by means of a suspension of the complexified family of Morse-Sturm boundary value problems. This invariant is defined in terms of the Brouwer degree of an associated determinant map and generalizes the invariant defined in [\textit{M. Musso} et al., Topol. Methods Nonlinear Anal. 25, No. 1, 69--99 (2005; Zbl 1101.58012)]. The authors prove a new spectral flow formula and illustrate the relation between this spectral flow formula and the Hill's determinant formula. Moreover, they exploit this invariant for detecting instability of periodic orbits of a Hamiltonian system. The final appendix contains an overview of basic definitions and properties on the Maslov index and the spectral flow.