Characterization of non-autonomous attractors of a perturbed infinite-dimensional gradient system (Q883345)

The paper considers infinite-dimensional non-autonomous systems that are perturbations of autonomous gradient systems with attractors that are the union of unstable manifolds of a finite set of hyperbolic equilibria. For such systems the exact structure of pullback attractors is determined. More precisely, it is shown that the pullback attractors of the perturbed systems inherit the structure of attractors of unperturbed ones, i.e. they are given as the union of unstable manifolds of a set of hyperbolic global solutions which are the non-autonomous analogues of the hyperbolic equilibria. Parallel to the autonomous case, it is proven that all solutions converge to one of these hyperbolic global solutions as \(t\to +\infty\). It is also shown how the obtained results can be adapted to systems that are asymptotically autonomous as \(t\to -\infty\) and as \(t\to +\infty\). These relatively simple test cases are used as a basis for a discussion of the possible definitions of a forward attractor in the non-autonomous case.