Persistent saddle connections in a class of reaction-diffusion equations (Q1303831)

A scalar reaction diffusion equation of the form \[ u_t=\Delta u+f(u),\quad t>0,\;x\in\Omega\tag{1} \] \[ u=0,\;t>0,\;x\in\partial\Omega,\tag{2} \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^N\) with smooth boundary, and \(f\) is a \(C^1\) function on \(\overline\Omega \times\mathbb{R}\), is considered. Problem (1), (2) defines a local semiflow on the Sobolev space \(W_0^{1,p}(\Omega)\) with a \(p>N\). We say that (1), (2) has the Morse-Smale property if the following two conditions are satisfied: (P1) Each equilibrium \(\varphi\) of (1), (2) is hyperbolic, that is, the linearization at \(\varphi\) does not have zero as an eigenvalue. (P2) For any two equilibria \(\varphi,\psi\) the unstable manifold of \(\varphi\) intersects the stable manifold of \(\psi\) transversally. The Morse-Smale property is closely related to structural stability. If an appropriate dissipativity condition is assumed, then (1), (2) has a global compact attractor \({\mathcal A}\). The Morse-Smale property ((P1), (P2)) guarantee that any small \(C^1\) dissipative perturbation of the semiflow of (1), (2) has an attractor \(\overline {\mathcal A}\) near \({\mathcal A}\) and the flow on \(\overline{\mathcal A}\) is conjugate to the flow of (1), (2) on \({\mathcal A}\). The author proves in this paper that (P2) is not a generic property of the nonlinearity \(f=f(u)\) in any reasonable \(C^1\) topology. It is known that for a more general class of equations, namely (1), (2) with \(f=f(x,u)\), (P1), (P2) is a generic property of \(f\) in reasonable \(C^k\) topologies for any \(k\geq 1\).