On the Morse complex for semilinear parabolic equations (Q2344809)

The Conley index, originally called homotopy index, is a topological invariant of isolated invariant sets of flows on compact spaces. Conley and his collaborators provided interesting applications of this object to ordinary differential equations and related areas. Later, Rybakowski extended the index to the infinite-dimensional setting, overcoming the lack of local compactness, and this allowed the theory to address some questions on partial differential equations. This paper studies the one-sided local semiflow defined by mild solutions of certain semilinear parabolic equations satisfying several properties which hold, for instance, for generic reaction-diffusion equations. Given an isolated invariant set \(K\) for this semiflow admitting a strongly admissible isolating neighborhood, the author defines a Morse complex associated to \(K\) in an analogous fashion as it is done for Morse-Smale functions on a compact Riemannian manifold. The main theorem states that the homology of this Morse complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the Conley index of \(K\).