Periodic solutions of second order Hamiltonian systems bifurcating from infinity

The goal of this article is to study closed connected sets of periodic solutions, of autonomous second order Hamiltonian systems, emanating from infinity. The main idea is to apply the degree for SO(2)-equivariant gradient operators defined by the second author. Using the results due to Rabier we show that we cannot apply the Leray-Schauder degree to prove the main results of this article. It is worth pointing out that since we study connected sets of solutions, we also cannot use the Conley index technique and the Morse theory.Comment: 24 page

Subharmonic solutions for nonautonomous sublinear first order Hamiltonian systems

In this paper, the existence of subharmonic solutions for a class of non-autonomous first-order Hamiltonian systems is investigated. We also study the minimality of periods for such solutions. Our results which extend and improve many previous results will be illustrated by specific examples. Our main tools are the minimax methods in critical point theory and the least action principle. {\bf Key words.} Hamiltonian systems. Critical point theory. Least action principle. Subharmonic solutions.Comment: 17 page

Quasiperiodic Dynamics in Bose-Einstein Condensates in Periodic Lattices and Superlattices

We employ KAM theory to rigorously investigate quasiperiodic dynamics in cigar-shaped Bose-Einstein condensates (BEC) in periodic lattices and superlattices. Toward this end, we apply a coherent structure ansatz to the Gross-Pitaevskii equation to obtain a parametrically forced Duffing equation describing the spatial dynamics of the condensate. For shallow-well, intermediate-well, and deep-well potentials, we find KAM tori and Aubry-Mather sets to prove that one obtains mostly quasiperiodic dynamics for condensate wave functions of sufficiently large amplitude, where the minimal amplitude depends on the experimentally adjustable BEC parameters. We show that this threshold scales with the square root of the inverse of the two-body scattering length, whereas the rotation number of tori above this threshold is proportional to the amplitude. As a consequence, one obtains the same dynamical picture for lattices of all depths, as an increase in depth essentially only affects scaling in phase space. Our approach is applicable to periodic superlattices with an arbitrary number of rationally dependent wave numbers.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures (several with multiple parts; higher-quality versions of some of them available at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~mason/papers), to appear very soon in Journal of Nonlinear Scienc

A variational approach to the study of the existence of invariant Lagrangian graphs

This paper surveys some results by the author and collaborators on the existence of invariant Lagrangian graphs for Tonelli Hamiltonian systems. The presentation is based on an invited talk by the author at XIX Congresso Unione Matematica Italiana (Bologna, 12-17 Sept. 2011).Comment: 28 page