Uniformly attracting solutions of nonautonomous differential equations (Q927948)

This paper is motivated by nonautonomous stability and bifurcation theory in terms of understanding the structure of attractors. It deals with scalar nonautonomous ODEs \[ (\ast)\quad\dot x=f(t,x) \] and restricts to (forward, pullback and uniform) attractors being complete bounded solutions for \((\ast)\). Moreover, the authors focus on asymptotically autonomous, polynomial (with degree \(d\)) and periodic equations. While the above attractor notions coincide for autonomous equations, it is shown by example that this equivalence fails already for almost periodic ODEs. Among other results, for asymptotically autonomous polynomial problems it is shown that the number of uniform attractors and repellers is bounded above by \(d\). As expected, periodic equations are studied using the Poincaré map. Here, the attractors (or repellers) are periodic with the same period as \((\ast)\). In addition, the above attractor notions are equivalent. Also for polynomial periodic equations (and small coefficients) the number of uniform attractors (repellers) is at most \(d\). The concepts and results of this paper are illustrated using a large number of illuminating examples. The conclusion is formed by an insightful comparison between a classical autonomous, and the perspectives of a nonautonomous bifurcation theory.