Cutting surfaces and applications to periodic points and chaotic-like dynamics (Q933132)

Motivated by the study of the Poincaré map associated to a second order nonlinear differential equation with sign changing weight, Papini and the second author of the present paper considered continuous planar maps which possess the property of stretching the paths joining two opposite sides of a topological rectangle [\textit{D.\,Papini, F.\,Zanolin}, Georgian Math.\ J.\ 9, No.\,2, 339--366 (2002; Zbl 1015.37027)]. In this special configuration, they obtain not only chaotic dynamics, but also the existence of fixed points and periodic points. In the present paper, the authors provide an elementary topological tool that allows them to extend to the higher dimension the theory above. In addition, this enables them to generalize and unify some theorems about the existence of fixed points and periodic points for continuous maps in Euclidean spaces. The main tools they used are a modified version of the classical Hurewicz--Wallman intersection lemma and the fundamental theorem of Leray--Schauder. It can be expected that the results and methods in the present paper will have many interesting applications in ODE.