Existence of stable subharmonic solutions for reaction-diffusion equations (Q5929056)

The authors study the parabolic problem \[ u_t=\Delta u+ f(u,t),\quad x\in\Omega,\quad \partial u/\partial\nu= 0,\quad x\in\partial\Omega,\tag{P} \] where \(u= u(x,t)\in \mathbb{R}\); \(\Omega\) is a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^N\) with the boundary \(\partial\Omega\); \(f:\mathbb{R}^2\to \mathbb{R}\) is a smooth function, \(\tau\)-periodic in \(t\). They are interested in the existence of a linearly stable subharmonic solution; a subharmonic solution for (P) is a solution \(\phi(x, t)\), \(k\tau\)-periodic in \(t\) for some integer \(k>1\); such a solution is said to be linearly stable if the time-\(k\tau\) map of the linearized problem \[ v_t= v+ f_u(\phi(x, t),t)v,\quad x\in\Omega,\quad\partial v/\partial\nu= 0,\quad x\in\partial\Omega,\tag{L} \] has all eigenvalues inside the unit circle in the complex plane. This problem is a spatially homogeneous problem (\(f\) is independent of \(x\)). The main result of this paper is the following: For any integers \(N\geq 2\) and \(k\geq 2\), there exist a domain \(\Omega\subseteq \mathbb{R}^N\) with smooth boundary and a smooth function \(f(u,t)\), \(\tau\)-periodic in \(t\), such that (P) has a linearly stable subharmonic solution of minimal period \(k\tau\).