Periodic solutions of systems of parabolic equations in unbounded domains (Q1570949)

This interesting paper is devoted to the investigation of periodic solutions of the nonlinear parabolic system \((u_i)_t-L_iu_i=f_i(t,x,\mathbf u)\) (\(t>0\), \(x\in\Omega\)), under boundary condition \(u_i(t,x)=h_i(t,x)\) (\(t>0\), \(x\in\partial\Omega\)) and initial condition (with periodic effect) \(u_i(0,x)=u_i(T,x)\) (\(x\in\Omega\)), \(i=1,2,...,N\). Here \(\mathbf u\equiv(u_1,u_2,...,u_N)\), \(T>0\) is fixed constant, and \(\Omega\) is either the whole space \(\mathbb{R}^n\), or the exterior of a bounded domain with boundary \(\partial\Omega\), \(f\) is, in general, a nonlinear function of \(\mathbf u\) and \(L_i\) is a uniformly elliptic operator. The existence and stability of periodic solutions for a class of coupled systems of parabolic equations in an unbounded domain which is either the whole space \(\mathbb{R}^n\) or the exterior of a bounded domain is investigated. An existence-comparison theorem is shown. The stability result consists in the statement that the in case \(\Omega =\mathbb{R}^n\) there exists \(\varepsilon >0\) such that the solution \(\mathbf u\) of the problem under consideration satisfies the following inequality: \[ \mathbf u^\ast(t,x)-\rho e^{-\varepsilon t}\leq \mathbf u(t,x)\leq \mathbf u^{\ast }(t,x)+\rho e^{-\varepsilon t}\quad (t>0,\;x\in\mathbb{R}^n), \] where \(\mathbf u^{\ast}(t,x)\) is a given periodic solution of the same problem. The existence result is illustrated by an application to a competitor-competitor-mutualist problem.