Extended Fuller index, sky catastrophes and the Seifert conjecture

We extend the classical Fuller index, and use this to prove that for a certain general class of vector fields [Formula: see text] on a compact smooth manifold, if a homotopy of smooth non-singular vector fields starting at [Formula: see text] has no sky catastrophes as defined by the paper, then the time 1 limit of the homotopy has periodic orbits. This class of vector fields includes the Hopf vector field on [Formula: see text]. A sky catastrophe is a kind of bifurcation originally discovered by Fuller. This answers a natural question that existed since the time of Fuller’s foundational papers. We also put strong constraints on the kind of sky-catastrophes that may appear for homotopies of Reeb vector fields.

Approximation methods and the generalised Fuller index for semi-flows in Banach spaces

In [3] Fuller introduced an index (now called the Fuller index) in order to study periodic solutions of ordinary differential equations. The objective of this paper is to give a simple generalisation of the Fuller index which can be used to study periodic points of flows in Banach spaces. We do not claim any significant breakthrough but merely suggest that the simplistic approach, presented here, might prove useful for the study of non-linear differential equations. We show our results can be used to study functional differential equations.