On the validity of the Ginzburg-Landau equation

Summary

The famous Ginzburg-Landau equation describes nonlinear amplitude modulations of a wave perturbation of a basic pattern when a control parameterR lies in the unstable regionO(ε ²) away from the critical valueR _c for which the system loses stability. Hereε>0 is a small parameter. G-L's equation is found for a general class of nonlinear evolution problems including several classical problems from hydrodynamics and other fields of physics and chemistry. Up to now, the rigorous derivation of G-L's equation for general situations is not yet completed. This was only demonstrated for special types of solutions (steady, time periodic) or for special problems (the Swift-Hohenberg equation). Here a mathematically rigorous proof of the validity of G-L's equation is given for a general situation of one space variable and a quadratic nonlinearity. Validity is meant in the following sense. For each given initial condition in a suitable Banach space there exists a unique bounded solution of the initial value problem for G-L's equation on a finite interval of theO(1/ε²)-long time scale intrinsic to the modulation. For such a finite time interval of the intrinsic modulation time scale on which the initial value problem for G-L's equation has a bounded solution, the initial value problem for the original evolution equation with corresponding initial conditions, has a unique solutionO(ε²) — close to the approximation induced by the solution of G-L's equation. This property guarantees that, for rather general initial conditions on the intrinsic modulation time scale, the behavior of solutions of G-L's equation is really inherited from solutions of the original problem, and the other way around: to a solution of G-L's equation corresponds a nearby exact solution with a relatively small error.