A backward \(\lambda\)-lemma for the forward heat flow (Q2509876)

The paper under review proves a backward \(\lambda\)-lemma for the heat flow near a hyperbolic fixed point \(x\) with four novelties in the proof (infinite versus finite dimension, semi-flow versus flow, a new proof for the finite-dimensional case, and the moving of the given disk transversal to the unstable manifold backward in time). An interesting application of the result is to propose a new way to compute the Conley homotopy index for the hyperbolic fixed point. Section 1 provides an introduction and states the main results of the paper. The heat equation considered in this paper is the downward \(L^2\) gradient equation of the action functional \[ {\mathcal S}_V(\gamma ) = \int_0^1 \Bigl(\frac{1}{2} |\dot{\gamma}(t)|^2 -V_t(\gamma (t))\Bigr) dt \] for a smooth function \(V: S^1\times M \to {\mathbb R}\) over a closed smooth Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n\). The fixed points of the heat flow \[ \partial_s u = \nabla_t \partial_t u + \text{grad}\, V_t (u), \quad (s, t) \in {\mathbb R}\times S^1, \] are the critical points of the action functional \({\mathcal S}_V(\gamma )\) and the heat flow reduces in this case to the second-order ODE \[ - \nabla_t \dot{x} - \nabla V_t(x)=0. \] The non-degeneracy of the Hessian of the functional \({\mathcal S}_V\) at \(x\) is the hyperbolicity of the fixed point \(x\) for the heat flow. The backward \(\lambda\)-lemma enters due to the Conley pair as the Morse filtration of the loop space \(\Lambda M\) by open semi-flow invariant sets for the family of pre-images of the heat flow. The assumptions required in this paper are that the descending and ascending disks are contained in the coordinate patch by the Morse lemma and the Palais-Morse lemma and that for a fixed spectral gap, the small disk \({\mathcal D}\) can be put into \({\mathcal B}_{\rho_0}\) in the local setup. The main results of the paper are Theorem 1 which shows that the backward \(\lambda\)-lemma holds and Theorem 2 which establishes the uniform \(C^1\) convergence property. The backward \(\lambda\)-lemma provides backward time information on open subsets and the first backward time information for the heat flow. It extends the finite-dimensional \(\lambda\)-lemma to the infinite-dimensional case under the Palais-Morse theory setup for the corresponding action functional. Section 2 collects the tools that will be used in the proofs. The Hessian \(A_x\) of the action functional has a spectrum that takes the form of a sequence of real eigenvalues with multiplicity bounded below by \(\lambda_1\) and the spectral gap \((0, d)\) of \(A_x\) is defined by \(d=\text{dist}(0, \sigma (A_x)).\) The local Lipschitz estimate for the nonlinearity is proved in \S 2.2 and the spectral projection of \(A_x\) and the semigroups and splittings are provided for the hyperbolic fixed point \(x\) in \S 2.3. The constant variation type formula (representation formula) for this infinite-dimensional case is given in Proposition 2 of \S 2.4 and the well-known local stable manifolds are presented in \S 2.5. Section 3 collects the proofs of the paper. The first proof of the backward \(\lambda\)-lemma is given in \S 3.1 under an extra hypothesis. The graph map is defined by the Banach fixed-point theorem from the representation formula and then the initial condition, the \(C^1\)-properties and the local diffeomorphism of the graph map are verified. Uniform convergence and \(L^2\) extension are also verified in order to finish the proof of Theorem 2. This is a very interesting paper that includes many technical estimates. It would be nice to see if this result can be pushed further from the action functional used in this paper to the symplectic action used in symplectic Floer homology, where the Hessian operator is of Dirac type instead of elliptic type.