Differentiability of Mather's $\beta$-function vs Ma\~n\'e's conjecture

Abstract

We prove that if a time-periodic Tonelli Lagrangian on a closed manifold $M$ satisfies a strong version of the Differentiability Problem for Mather's $\beta$-function, then the Legendre transforms of rational homology classes are dense in the first cohomology of $M$, which is a first step towards Ma\~n\'e's conjecture.