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.