A class of pattern-forming models (Q1819213)

The paper revisits the general theory of systems that describe evolution of one-dimensional patterns in terms of nonlinear partial differential or integrodifferential equations. The systems considered can be represented as gradient flows, i.e., they have a Lyapunov functional. Particular examples include special types of two-component reaction-diffusion systems, in which only one equation contains the time derivative, and complex and real Swift-Hohenberg equations. As is commonly known, an absolutely stable solution to such a system is a minimizer, i.e., a function which provides for a global minimum of the Lyapunov functional. Systems of the above-mentioned type are characterized by the property that their minimizer cannot be a just trivial constant, but must be a periodic function of the spatial coordinate. In this work, the existence of the minimizer in these models is proven in a formally rigorous way. The local stability of spatially periodic solutions different from the minimizer, which is given by the known Eckhaus criterion and its generalizations, is also revisited in this paper.