Closed orbits of a charge in a weakly exact magnetic field

Abstract

We prove that for a weakly exact magnetic system on a closed connected Riemannian manifold, almost all energy levels contain a closed orbit. More precisely, we prove the following stronger statements. Let $(M,g)$ denote a closed connected Riemannian manifold and $σ$ a weakly exact 2-form. Let $ϕ_{t}$ denote the magnetic flow determined by $σ$, and let $c$ denote the Mane critical value of the pair $(g,σ)$. We prove that if $k>c$, then for every non-trivial free homotopy class of loops on $M$ there exists a closed orbit with energy $k$ whose projection to $M$ belongs to that free homotopy class. We also prove that for almost all $k<c$ there exists a closed orbit with energy $k$ whose projection to $M$ is contractible. In particular, when $c=\infty$ this implies that almost every energy level has a contractible closed orbit. As a corollary we deduce that if $σ$ is not exact and $M$ has an amenable fundamental group (which implies $c=\infty$) then there exist contractible closed orbits on almost every energy level.

25 pages. v3 - minor corrections, this version to appear in PJM