Duality mapping and the existence of periodic solutions for non-autonomous second order systems (Q2492142)

The existence of \(T\)-periodic solutions of the nonautonomous system \[ \frac{d}{dt}(\| \dot u(t)\| ^{p-2}u(t))=\| u(t)\| ^{p-2}u(t)+F(t,u(t))\tag{1} \] is considered. Here, \(p>1\), \(u\) and \(F\) take values in \({\mathbb R}^N\) and \(F\) is Carathéodory. The authors show that a sufficient condition for existence is \[ \| F(t,x)\| \leq \gamma(t)(\| x\| ^r+1)\;\forall t,x, \] with \(\gamma\in L^{2p'}(0,T)\), \(\frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{p'}=1\), \(r=\frac{p}{2p'}\). The proof consists in converting (1) into an operator equation between \(W_T^{1,p}(0,T)\) (the subscript referring to \(T\)-periodicity) and its dual, by using a duality mapping and the fact that the Nemytski operator based on \(F\) has a certain subcritical growth.