Slow motion of gradient flows (Q2370316)

Given two manifolds \(\mathcal{N}\subset\mathcal{M}\) and an energy functional \(E:\mathcal{M}\to\mathbb{R}\), two conditions are provided which guarantee that the solution \(u\) to the gradient flow \(\partial_t u = -\nabla E(u)\) with initial condition \(u_0\) approaches a \(\delta\)-neighbourhood of (the slow manifold) \(\mathcal{N}\) with a temporal exponential rate close to \(1\). The two conditions are the Lipschitz continuity of \(E\) on \(\mathcal{N}\) with Lipschitz constant \(\delta\) and the energy inequalities: for every \(u\in\mathcal{M}\) there is \(v\in\mathcal{N}\) such that \[ \frac{1}{2}\;| u-v| ^2 \leq E(u)-E(v) \leq \frac{1}{2}\;| \nabla E(u)| ^2\,. \] This abstract framework is then use to give a new proof of the exponentially slow motion of transition layers in the one-dimensional Allen-Cahn equation \(\partial_t u = \partial_x^2 u -G'(u)\) with periodic boundary conditions (and \(G(r)=(1-r^2)^2/4\) for instance).