DYNAMIC BIFURCATION OF NONLINEAR EVOLUTION EQUATIONS

The authors introduce a notion of dynamic bifurcation for nonlinear evolution equations, which can be called attractor bifurcation. It is proved that as the control parameter crosses certain critical value, the system bifurcates from a trivial steady state solution to an attractor with dimension between m and m+1, where m+1 is the number of eigenvalues crossing the imaginary axis. The attractor bifurcation theory presented in this article generalizes the existing steady state bifurcations and the Hopf bifurcations. It provides a unified point of view on dynamic bifurcation and can be applied to many problems in physics and mechanics.