Periodic motions in forced problems of Kepler type (Q408967)

This paper deals with a second-order Newtonian equation of the form \[ z'' \pm {{z}\over{|z|^{q+1}}}= \lambda h(t), \] where \(z \in {\mathbb C}\setminus \{0\}, q \geq 2, \lambda \geq 0\) and \(h: {\mathbb R} \to {\mathbb C}\) is continuous and \(2\pi\)-periodic with zero average. For a \(2\pi\)-periodic solution \(\phi\) the integer \(j(0,\phi)\) denotes the winding number of \(\phi\) around the singularity \(z=0\); moreover, \(j(\Omega,\gamma)\) denotes the classical index \(j(z,\gamma)\) of \(z\) w.r.t. the contour \(\gamma\), for any \(z\) in a connected component \(\Omega\) of \({\mathbb C} \setminus \gamma ({\mathbb R})\). Let \(H\) be a \(2\pi\)-periodic solution of \(H''(t)=-h(t)\) and let \(\Omega_1, \dots, \Omega_r\) be bounded components of \({\mathbb C} \setminus H({\mathbb R})\). In this situation, it is proved that there exists \(\lambda_{\ast} >0\) such that the given equation has at least \(r\) different solutions \(\phi_1, \dots, \phi_r\) of period \(2 \pi\) for \(\lambda \geq \lambda_{\ast}\). Moreover, \(j(0,\phi_k)=j(\Omega_k,H)\). The proof is based on topological degree techniques; more precisely, it is performed a clever argument in the framework of the averaging method. Indeed, for \(c_1 \in \Omega_k, c_2 \in {\mathbb C}\), the averaging function \(G\) is \(G(c_1,c_2)=(c_2,\Phi(c_1))\), where \[ \Phi(c_1)=\pm (1/2\pi) \int_0^{2\pi} (c_1-H(t))(|c_1-H(t)|^{-q-1})dt. \] Then, the crucial remark is that \(\Phi\) is a gradient vector field, whose degree can be calculated by a ''guiding-function'' argument.