The existence of periodic solutions of delay differential equations by \(E^+\)-Conley index theory (Q2672492)

The author uses the so-called \(E^+\)-Conley index theory in order to discuss the existence of periodic solutions of the delay differential equation \[ \quad x^\prime(t)=-f(t, x(t-\frac{\pi}{2})), \tag{\(*\)} \] where \(f\in C(\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}^n, \mathbb{R}^n).\) The basic assumptions include that \(f(t,x)\) is odd with respect to \(x\) and \(\pi\)-periodic with respect to \(t.\) Also, it is assumed that \(f(t,x)=\nabla_x F(t,x)\), for some continuously differentiable \(F\) and there is a \(\pi\)-periodic continuous loop of symmetric matrices \(B_{\infty}(t)\) and a function \(G\in C^2(\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}^n, \mathbb{R}^n),\) such that \(\nabla G(t,x)=o(|x|)\), as \(|x|\to+\infty,\) uniformly with respect to \(t\in[0,\pi],\) \(D^2G\) bounded and \(f(t,x)=B_{\infty}(t)+\nabla G(t,x).\) If \(z(t)\) is a \(2\pi\)-periodic solution and the linearised system \[ \quad \dot{x}(t)=-D^2F(t,z(t))x(t-\frac{\pi}{2}) \tag{\(**\)} \] has nontrivial \(2\pi\)-periodic solutions, then \(z\) is called \(2\pi\)-resonant if \((**)\). Otherwise it is called \(2\pi\)-nonresonant. If the system \( \dot{x}(t)=-B_{\infty}(t)x(t-\frac{\pi}{2})\) has no nontrivial \(2\pi\)-periodic solution, then we have \(2\pi\)-nonresonance at infinity. The first result of the paper refers to solutions of such kind of \(2\pi\)-nonresonant systems and the second one to the existence of \(2\pi\)-periodic solutions of \((*).\) The paper is organised as follows: In sections 2 and 3 some preliminaries and the \(E^+\)-Conley index theory are presented, while the proofs of the results are given in Sections 4 and 5.