Global attractors and approximate inertial

Abstract

An abstract nonautonomous differential equation, u' + Au + F(u) = f ( t ) , is considered using assumptions appropriate for systems of reaction-diffusion equations on multi-dimensional spatial domains. A priori estimates establish the existence of absorbing balls in relevant function spaces, and nonsequently the existence of a global attractor is verified in the associated skew-product flow. It is also shown that approximate inertial manifolds exist for this equation. These are finite-dimensional manifolds which have exponentially attracting neighborhoods under the flow. The dimension of the manifold and the thickness of the attracting neighborhood are inversely related.

Keywords:

• Approximate inertial manifold
• dissipative equation
• global attractor
• nonautonomous equation
• reaction—diffusion equations
• skew—product flow