Reduction of weakly nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations

Abstract

It is known that the Swift-Hohenberg equation $\partial u/\partial t = -(\partial_x^2 + 1)^2u + \varepsilon (u-u^3)$ can be reduced to the Ginzburg-Landau equation (amplitude equation) $\partial A/\partial t = 4\partial_x^2 A + \varepsilon (A-3A|A|^2)$ by means of the singular perturbation method. This means that if $\varepsilon >0$ is sufficiently small, a solution of the latter equation provides an approximate solution of the former one. In this paper, a reduction of a certain class of a system of nonlinear parabolic equations $\partial u/\partial t = \mathcal{P}u + \varepsilon f(u)$ is proposed. An amplitude equation of the system is defined and an error estimate of solutions is given. Further, it is proved under certain assumptions that if the amplitude equation has a stable steady state, then a given equation has a stable periodic solution . In particular, near the periodic solution, the error estimate of solutions holds uniformly in $t>0$.