Variational principle for contact Hamiltonian systems and its applications

Abstract: In \cite{WWY}, the authors provided an implicit variational principle for the contact Hamilton's equations \begin{align*} \left{ \begin{array}{l} \dot{x}=\frac{\partial H}{\partial p}(x,u,p),\ \dot{p}=-\frac{\partial H}{\partial x}(x,u,p)-\frac{\partial H}{\partial u}(x,u,p)p,\quad (x,p,u)\in T^*M\times\mathbf{R},\ \dot{u}=\frac{\partial H}{\partial p}(x,u,p)\cdot p-H(x,u,p), \end{array} \right. \end{align*} where $M$ is a closed, connected and smooth manifold and $H=H(x,u,p)$ is strictly convex, superlinear in $p$ and Lipschitz in $u$. In the present paper, we focus on two applications of the variational principle: 1. We provide a representation formula for the solution semigroup of the evolutionary equation [ w_t(x,t)+H(x,w(x,t),w_x(x,t))=0; ] 2. We study the ergodic problem of the stationary equation via the solution semigroup. More precisely, we find pairs $(u,c)$ with $u\in C(M,\mathbf{R})$ and $c\in\mathbf{R}$ which, in the viscosity sense, satisfy the stationary partial differential equation [ H(x,u(x),u_x(x))=c. ]