The Palais-Smale condition for the Hamiltonian action on a mixed regularity space of loops in cotangent bundles and applications (Q776028)

Given an arbitrary closed symplectic manifold the Hamiltonian action functional of a contractible loop is not well suited for finding critical points (i.e., one-periodic solutions of a Hamiltonian system) by using classical Morse theory. A more appropriate theory for the study of periodic orbits in general symplectic manifolds is Floer theory, which can be applied on compact symplectic manifolds that are suitably convex at infinity by using Hamiltonians with a suitable behavior at infinity. In infinite-dimensional critical point theory, the starting point for a classical Morse theory for the Hamiltonian action functional is the Palais-Smale condition (a natural replacement of compactness). The aim of the paper is to enlarge the class of symplectic manifolds such that the negative gradient flow induced by the Hamiltonian action of a contractible loop has good compactness properties. The geometric setting is the space \(T^*M\) of the cotangent bundle of a closed manifold \(M\), since \(T^*M\) carries a natural symplectic form, and according to [\textit{A. Abbondandolo} and \textit{M. Schwarz}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 59, No. 2, 254--316 (2006; Zbl 1084.53074)], it is isomorphic to the singular homology of the free loop space of \(M\). The authors prove the Palais-Smale condition for the Hamiltonian action over the space of loops with regularity \(H^s\) in the base and \(H^{1-s}\) in the fiber direction, where \(s\in(\frac{1}{2}, 1)\). By using this result, the authors show the existence of closed characteristic leaves for certain contact-type hypersurfaces in \(T^*M\), in a simpler way than it was proved in [\textit{H. Hofer} and \textit{C. Viterbo}, Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci., IV. Ser. 15, No. 3, 411--445 (1988; Zbl 0697.58044)].