The limit equation for the Gross-Pitaevskii equations and S. Terracini's conjecture (Q665516)

The authors consider the following system of partial differential equations: \[ \partial u_i/\partial t - d_i\triangle u_i = f_i(u_i) - ku_i\sum\limits_{j\neq i}b_{ij}u_j^2 \;\;\text{in} \;\;B_1(0)\times (-1,0), \tag{\(\ast\)} \] where \(b_{ij}>0\) and \(d_i>0\) are constants satisfying \(b_{ij}=b_{ji}\), \(1\leq i,j\leq M\), and \(B_1(0)\) is the unit ball in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) (\(n\geq 1\)). The model with \(f_i(u)=a_iu-u^p\) (\(a_i>0\), \(p>1\)) can be seen very often. A special interest arises when \(k\) is large. This dynamical system arises from Bose-Einstein condensates, and is known as the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. There exists another system of differential inequalities \[ \begin{aligned} \partial u_i/\partial t-d_i\triangle u_i\leq f_i(u_i) & \qquad \text{in} \;\;B_1(0)\times (-1,0), \\ (\partial /\partial t - d_i\triangle )u_i-\sum\limits_{j\neq i}(\partial /\partial t - d_j\triangle )u_j \geq f_i(u_i)-\sum\limits_{j\neq i}f_j(u_j) & \qquad \text{in} \;\;B_1(0)\times (-1,0), \end{aligned} \] where \(u_i\geq 0\) in \(B_1(0)\times (-1,0)\), and \(u_iu_j-0\) for \(i\neq j\) in \(B_1(0)\times (-1,0)\). The basic assumption here is \(\int\limits_{B_{1/2}(0)}|u(x,0)|^2>0\). This assumption is guaranteed if the solution \(u\) is in a fixed bounded smooth domain with zero Dirichlet boundary condition. The main result concerns the case when \(k\to +\infty \). If a sequence of bounded solutions \(u_k=(u_{1,k},u_{2,k},\ldots ,u_{M,k})\) of \((\ast )\) converges to \(u=(u_1,u_2,\ldots ,u_M)\), then \(u\) satisfies the above stated system of inequalities. The paper covers and verifies a conjecture of S. Terracini et al. [\textit{B. Noris, H. Tavares, S. Terracini} and \textit{G. Verzini}, ``Convergence of minimax and continuation of critical points for singularly perturbed systems'', J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) (in press), \url{arXiv:0910.5317}], both in the parabolic case and the elliptic case.