Ginzburg-Landau patterns in circular and spherical geometries: vortices, spirals and attractors

Abstract

This paper consists of three results on pattern formation of Ginzburg-Landau $m$-armed vortex solutions and spiral waves in circular and spherical geometries. First, we completely describe the global bifurcation diagram of vortex equilibria. Second, we prove persistence of all bifurcation curves under perturbations of parameters, which yields the existence of spiral waves for the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. Third, we explicitly construct the global attractor of $m$-armed vortex solutions. Our main tool is a new shooting method that allows us to prove hyperbolicity of vortex equilibria in the invariant subspace of vortex solutions.