Periodic Solutions of Non-Autonomous Second Order Hamiltonian Systems

Abstract

We try to generalize a result of M. Willem on forced periodic oscillations which required the assumption that the forced potential is periodic on spatial variables. In this paper, we only assume its integral on the time variable is periodic, and so we extend the result to cover the forced pendulum equation. We apply the direct variational minimizing method and Rabinowtz's saddle point theorem to study the periodic solution when the integral of the potential on the time variable is periodic.