Periodic orbits of twisted geodesic flows and the Weinstein-Moser theorem (Q843202)

The classical Weinstein-Moser theorem asserts that, given a Hamiltonian \(H:{\mathbb R}^{2n}\rightarrow{\mathbb R}\), there are at least \(n\) periodic orbits on every energy level of \(H\) which is near a non-degenerate extremum [\textit{A. Weinstein}, Invent. Math. 20, 47--57 (1973; Zbl 0264.70020)] and [\textit{J. Moser}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 29, 727--747 (1976; Zbl 0346.34024)]. In the paper under review the authors prove a very interesting generalisation of this theorem. Given a Hamiltonian \(K\) on a symplectic manifold \(P\) whose Chern class is either zero or proportional to the symplectic class, suppose that the minimal level of \(K\) is a closed symplectic submanifold \(M\subset P\) which is Morse-Bott non-degenerate. Then every energy level \(K^{-1}(r)\) near the minimal one carries at least one periodic orbit of the Hamiltonian flow of \(K\). In the particular case where \(P=T^{\ast}M\) endowed with a twisted symplectic form \(\omega_{0}+\pi^{\ast}\sigma\) and \(K\) is the standard kynetic energy Hamiltonian, the corresponding Hamiltonian flow is called the magnetic or twisted geodesic flow. (here \(\pi:T^{\ast}M\rightarrow M\) is the projection and \(\sigma\) is closed on \(M\)). The crucial ingredient of the proof is a Floer homology computation which implies the existence of a periodic orbit on some energy level set \(K^{-1}(\rho)\), arbitrarily close to the given level \(K^{-1}(r)\). In order to prove that the desired periodic orbit survives in the limit process \(\rho\rightarrow r\), one needs an uniform bound on the period of the periodic orbits of the sequence. This is established using a Sturm comparison theorem [see \textit{V. I. Arnold}, Funkts. Anal. Prilozhen 19, 1--10 (1985; Zbl 0606.58017)] which involves the Salamon-Zehnder index [\textit{D. Salamon} and \textit{E. Zehnder}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 45, 1303--1360 (1992; Zbl 0766.58023)] of symplectic paths defined by the linearized Hamilton equation along periodic orbits.