Periodic solutions for a class of second-order ordinary differential equations (Q2370055)

The authors consider periodic systems of the following two forms: \[ y''-\nabla U(y) =0 \] and \[ y''-\nabla _{y}V(x,y) =\dot{0}, \] where \(U\) is continuously differentiable, \(V\) is \(T\)-periodic in \(x\) and continuously differentiable in \(y\). The classical calculus of variations approach towards the existence of solutions to boundary value problems relies on finding the action functional and later on looking for its minimizer. Sometimes it appears easier to find a minimizer for an equivalent problem. Therefore in case of either system they find a suitable continuously differentiable function \(S\), which is used to transform the integrand of the action functional for the original problem to such an integrand, for which a variational problem has a minimizer. Since both the action functionals are equivalent on admissible functions, this minimizer is a solution to the original problem. In order to determine the function \(S\), Hamilton-Jacobi type equations must be solved. The method developed by the authors generalizes the classical method of equivalent variational problems to the case of periodic systems of both autonomous and nonautonomous type. Examples are given in order to illustrate theoretical results. It is interesting that the method presented by the authors allows to obtain explicit solutions to certain second order nonlinear problems by solving a suitable first order BVP.