Finding linking sets (Q2468989)

Assume that \(E\) is a Banach space and let \(C^{1}_{U}(E;\mathbb R)\) be the family of all functionals whose Fréchet derivatives are uniformly continuous on bounded sets. For \(A, B \subset E\), one says that \(A\) links \(B\) if the class of \(G \in C^{1}_{U}(E;\mathbb R)\) satisfying the condition \[ a_{0} := \sup_{A} G < b_{0} := \inf_{B} G \] is nonempty and for every such \(G\) there are a sequence \((u_{k}) \subset E\) and a constant \(c\) such that \[ b_{0} \leq c < \infty, \quad G(u_{k}) \to c\text{ and } G'(u_{k}) \to 0. \] A map \(\varphi : E \to E\) is said to be of class \(\Lambda\) if it is a homeomorphism onto \(E\) and both \(\varphi \) and \(\varphi ^{-1}\) are bounded on bounded sets. If furthermore \(\varphi , \varphi ^{-1} \in C_{U}^{1}(E;\mathbb R)\), we say that \(\varphi \in \Lambda_{U}\). A bounded set \(A\) is said to be chained to a set \(B\) if \( A \cap B = \emptyset\) and \[ \inf_{B} \|\varphi (x)\| \leq \sup_{A} \|\varphi (x)\| , \quad\varphi \in \Lambda_{U}. \tag \(*\) \] A bounded set \(A\) is said to be strongly chained to \(B\) if \( A \cap B = \emptyset\) and (\(*\)) holds for every \(\varphi \in \Lambda\). Theorem. If a bounded set \(A\) is strongly chained to \(B\), then \(A\) links \(B\). Theorem. If \(E\) is a Hilbert space and \(A\) links \(B\), then it is chained to \(B\). These two theorems are the main results of this paper.