Convex Energy Levels of Hamiltonian Systems

Pedro A. S. Salom~ao

Dedicated to Professor Jorge Sotomayor on his 60th birthday

We give a simple necessary and sufficient condition for a non-regular energy level of a Hamiltonian system to be strictly convex. We suppose that the Hamiltonian function is given by kinetic plus potential energy. We also show that this condition holds for several Hamiltonian functions, including the H% \'enon-Heiles one.