A Liouville property and quasiconvergence for a semilinear heat equation (Q705969)

The asymptotic behaviour of solutions of the Cauchy problem for a semilinear heat equation of the form: \[ u_t=\Delta u+ u^p,\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^N,\;t> 0,\tag{1} \] \[ u(x,0)= u_0(x),\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^N,\tag{2} \] is studied. Here \(p> 1\), the function \(u_0\) is nonnegative and \(u_0\in C_0(\mathbb{R}^{\mathbb{N}})\) (the space of all continuous functions on \(\mathbb{R}^{\mathbb{N}}\) that decay to zero at infinity). There is used the one-parameter family of radial positive functions \(\varphi_\alpha\), \(0> 0\), given by \[ \varphi_\alpha(x)= \alpha\Phi(\alpha^{(p-1)/2}|x|),\tag{3} \] where \(\Phi= \Phi(r)\), \(r=|x|\), is the (unique) radial steady state with \(\Phi(0)= 1\); it is decreasing in \(r\) and satisfies \(\Phi(r)\to 0\) as \(r\to\infty\). These functions are examples of global solutions -- positive steady states. In a previous paper the authors show that for given two steady states \(\varphi_\alpha< \varphi_\beta\), \(0<\alpha<\beta\), there exists \(u_0\in C_0(\mathbb{R}^N)\) with \[ \varphi_\alpha(x)\leq u_0(x)\leq \varphi_\beta(x),\qquad x\in\mathbb{R}^N,\tag{4} \] such that \(\omega(u_0)= \{\varphi_\gamma: \alpha\leq\gamma\leq \beta\}.\) Here \(\omega(u_0)\) stands for the \(\omega\)-limit set of the solution \(u(\cdot,t, u_0)\) of (1), (2): \[ \omega(u_0)= \{\phi: u(\cdot, t_n, u_0)\to \phi\text{ for some sequence }t_n\to \infty\}, \] with the convergence in the supremum norm. By the maximum principle, if \(u_0\) satisfies (4), then \(u(\cdot, t, u_0)\) is bounded above and below by the same steady states, hence its trajectory \(\{u(\cdot, t, u_0): t\geq 0\}\) is relatively compact in \(C_0(\mathbb{R}^N)\). Then \(\omega(u_0)\) is a nonempty, compact and connected subset of \(C_0(\mathbb{R}^N)\). In the present paper, it is shown that for each \(u_0\) satisfying (4) the solution \(u(\cdot, t, u_0)\) converges to a set of steady states (henceforth such solutions are referred to as quasi-convergent) for \(p> p_c\), where \[ p_c= \begin{cases}{(N- 2)^2- 4N+ 8\sqrt{N-1}\over (N- 2)(N- 10)}\quad &\text{if }N> 10,\\ \infty\quad &\text{if }N\leq 10.\end{cases} \] The assumption on \(u_0\) allowing the upper bound to be given by the singular steady state \[ \varphi_\infty(x)= L|x|^{-2/(p- 1)}\quad\text{with}\quad L= \Biggl({2\over p-1}\Biggl(N- 2-{2\over p-1}\Biggr)\Biggr)^{1/(p- 1)} \] is relaxed. For all \(0<\alpha<\infty\) it holds \(\varphi_\alpha< \varphi_\infty\) and \(\varphi_\alpha(x)\to \varphi_\infty(x)\), as \(\alpha\to\infty\) for each \(x\in \mathbb{R}^N\) (defining \(\varphi_\infty(0)=\infty\)). The method used relies on similarity variables and invariant manifold ideas.