Two nontrivial solutions for periodic systems with indefinite linear part (Q2470999)

The authors study a second order periodic system with a nonsmooth potential and an indefinite linear part. In particular the problem under consideration is the following \[ \begin{cases} -x''(t) -A(t)x(t)\in \partial j(t,x(t)) & \text{ for a.e. on } T= [0,b], \\ x(0)=x(b), x'(0)=x'(b), \end{cases} \] where \(t\mapsto A(t)\) is a continuous map from \(T\) into the space of \(N\times N\) symmetric matrices, \(\partial j(t,x)\) is the generalized subdifferential of a locally Lipschitz function \(x\mapsto j(t,x)\). The conditions imposed are such that the nonsmooth Euler functional is unbounded. By using a nonsmooth variant of the reduction method and the nonsmooth local linking theorem, the authors give a multiplicity result guaranteeing that the problem has at least two nontrivial solutions.