Homoclinic solutions for a class of second-order Hamiltonian systems (Q5901974)

In this paper the following second-order Hamiltonian system is considered \[ \ddot{u}(t) - L(t) u(t) + \nabla W(t,u(t)) = f(t), \tag{1} \] where \(t \in \mathbb{R}\), \(u \in \mathbb{R}^n\), \(W \in \mathcal{C}^1(\mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{R}^n, \mathbb{R})\) and \(f \in \mathcal{C}(\mathbb{R}, \mathbb{R}^n)\), are not necessary periodic in \(t\). The main result gives sufficient conditions for system (1) to have a nontrivial homoclinic solution. A solution \(u(t)\) of (1) is said to be a nontrivial homoclinic solution (to \(0\)) if \(u(t) \to 0\) as \(t \to \pm \infty\) and \(u(t) \not\equiv 0\). The authors generalize a result of \textit{P. H. Rabinowitz} and \textit{K. Tanaka} [Math. Z. 206, No. 3, 473--499 (1991; Zbl 0707.58022)].