Global attractors of evolutionary systems (Q1028632)

Existence of a global attractor in a dissipative partial differential equation such as the Navier-Stokes equations can be a challenging problem if the semigroup is not asymptotically compact or if no semigroup property exists due to the lack of uniqueness. The author follows his previous work with \textit{C. Foias} in [J. Differ. Equations 231, No. 2, 714--754 (2006; Zbl 1113.35140)] and study the structure of a global attractor of an abstract evolutionary system, focusing on omega-limits and attracting, invariant, and quasi-invariant sets. The main application is to study the long-time behavior of the 3D Navier-Stokes equations, where the proof of uniqueness is lacking. Weak and strong uniform tracking properties of omega-limits and global attractors are obtained. In addition, a trajectory attractor is discussed and a condition under which the convergence to the trajectory attractor is strong is derived.