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On the loss of compactness in the vectorial heteroclinic connection problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2016

Nikos Katzourakis*
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Reading, Whiteknights Campus, PO Box 220, Reading RG6 6AX, UK ([email protected])

Extract

We give an alternative proof of the theorem of Alikakos and Fusco concerning existence of heteroclinic solutions U : ℝ → ℝN to the system

Here a± are local minima of a potential WC2(ℝN) with W(a±) = 0. This system arises in the theory of phase transitions. Our method is variational but differs from the original artificial constraint method of Alikakos and Fusco and establishes existence by analysing the loss of compactness in minimizing sequences of the action in the appropriate functional space. Our assumptions are slightly different from those considered previously and also imply a priori estimates for the solution.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 2016 

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