Preservation of the Maslov index along bifurcating branches of solutions of first order systems in \(\mathbf {R}^{N}\) (Q2498851)

The following boundary problem is considered \[ z' = JS(t,z,\lambda)z,\quad z=(x,y)\in \mathbb R^{2N},\quad t\in [0,\pi], \; \lambda \in (a,b),\quad x(0)=0=x(\pi),\tag{1} \] where \(J\) is the standard symplectic matrix and \(S(t,z,\lambda)\) is a symmetric matrix satisfying a definiteness condition. The Maslov index and a bifurcation argument are used in order to obtain multiplicity results for (1).