Almost periodic linear differential equations with non-separated solutions

A celebrated result by Favard states that, for certain almost periodic linear differential systems, the existence of a bounded solution implies the existence of an almost periodic solution. A key assumption in this result is the separation among bounded solutions. Here we prove a theorem of anti-Favard type: if there are bounded solutions which are non-separated (in a strong sense) sometimes almost periodic solutions do not exist. Strongly non-separated solutions appear when the associated homogeneous system has homoclinic solutions. This point of view unifies two fascinating examples by Zhikov–Levitan and Johnson for the scalar case. Our construction uses the ideas of Zhikov–Levitan together with the theory of characters in topological groups. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved