Periodic solutions of nonlinear delay equations

Existence and uniqueness of 2π-periodic solutions of $\text{d}{}^{\mathrm{j}}\text{x(t)}\text{dt}{}^{\mathrm{j}}\text{+}\text{grad}\text{G(x(t ? τ)) = e(t, x(t), x(t ? τ)) (j = 1, 2)}$, where x(t) is in $\text{R}$ⁿ and e(t, u, v) is a given vector function, 2π-periodic in t, are shown under conditions on the spectrum of the Hessian of G. The equation is studied using a fixed point theorem in the space L²(0, 2π). One feature of this approach is that no relationship between the delay and the period is necessary.