The Conley-Zehnder index for a path of symplectic matrices

Abstract

We give here a self contained and elementary introduction to the Conley-Zehnder index for a path of symplectic matrices. We start from the definition of the index as the degree of a map into the circle for a path starting at the identity and ending at a matrix for which 1 is not an eigenvalue. We prove some properties which characterize this index using normal forms for symplectic matrices obtained from geometrical considerations. We explore the relations to Robbin-Salamon index for paths of Lagrangians. We give an axiomatic characterization of the generalization of the Conley-Zehnder index for any continuous path of symplectic matrices defined by Robbin and Salamon.