Periodic solutions of second order superquadratic Hamiltonian systems with potential changing sign. I (Q2576962)

The author proves the following result: Let \(V_{1}\) and \(V_{2}\) be \(C^{2}\) functions satisfying the superquadratic condition: \(V^{'}(x)\cdot x\geqslant \theta\cdot V(x)>0\), \(| x|\geqslant{r}\), \(\theta\in\mathbb{R}\) and let \(h\) be a continuous \(2\pi\)-periodic function satisfying the thick zero condition \[ \overline{\{t\in{[0,2\pi]}| h(t)<0\}}\cap \overline{\{t\in{[0,2\pi]}| h(t)>0\}}= S_{-}\cap {S_{+}}=\emptyset. \] Set \(h_{-}=\min\{0,h\}\) and \(h_{+}=\max\{0,h\}\). Suppose \(\lambda\notin \sigma(S_{0})\), where \(\sigma(S_{0})=\) the set of the eigenvalues of \(-\ddot{x}=\lambda x\) with Dirichlet boundary condition on \(S_{0}=S^{1}-(S_{+}\cup S_{-})\). Then, \[ -\ddot{x}-\lambda x=h_{-}(t)V^{'}_{1}(x)+h_{+}(t)V^{'}_{2}(x)\tag{1} \] has a nonzero \(2\pi\)-periodic solution if either \(\lambda\notin{\sigma(S^{1})}\), where \(\sigma(S^{1})=\) the set of the eigenvalues of \(-\ddot{x}=\lambda x\) with the periodic boundary conditions \(x(0)=x(2\pi)\), \(\dot{x}(0)=\dot{x}(2\pi)\), \(V_{1}\) and \(V_{2}\) satisfy \(|{V^{'}_{1}}(x)|=|{V^{'}_{2}}(x)|=O(|{x}|)\) at \(x=0\), or there is a symmetric neighborhood \(U\) of \(0\) in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) such that: \(V_{1}(-x)=V_{1}(x)\), \(V_{2}(-x)=V_{2}(x)\), \(x\in{U}\). Moreover, if \(V_1\) and \(V_{2}\) are even in \(x\), then (1) has an unbounded sequence of \(2\pi\)-periodic solutions. For Part II see the review below.