Almost automorphically forced flows on $S^1$ or $\mathbb{R}$ in one-dimensional almost periodic semilinear heat equations

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the asymptotic dynamics of the skew-product semiflow generated by the following time almost-periodically forced scalar reaction-diffusion equation \begin{equation}\label{eq0} u_{t}=u_{xx}+f(t,u,u_{x}),\,\,t>0,\, 0<x<L \end{equation} with periodic boundary condition \begin{equation} \label{bdc1} u(t,0)=u(t,L),\quad u_x(t,0)=u_x(t,L), \end{equation} where $f$ is uniformly almost periodic in $t$. In particular, we study the topological structure of the limit sets of the skew-product semiflow. It is proved that any compact minimal invariant set (throughout this paper, we refer to it as a minimal set) can be residually embedded into an invariant set of some almost automorphically-forced flow on a circle $S^1=\mathbb{R}/L\mathbb{Z}$. Particularly, if $f(t,u,p)=f(t,u,-p)$, then the flow on a minimal set topologically conjugates to an almost periodically-forced minimal flow on $\mathbb{R}$. Moreover, it is proved that the $\omega$-limit set of any bounded orbit contains at most two minimal sets that cannot be obtained from each other by phase translation. In addition, we further consider the asymptotic dynamics of the skew-product semiflow generated by \eqref{eq0} with Neumann boundary condition \begin{equation*} \label{bcd2} u_x(t,0)=u_x(t,L)=0, \end{equation*} or Dirichlet boundary condition \begin{equation*}\label{bdc3} u(t,0)=u(t,L)=0. \end{equation*} Under certain direct assumptions on $f$, it is proved in this paper that the flow on any minimal set of \eqref{eq0}, with Neumann boundary condition or Dirichlet boundary condition, topologically conjugates to an almost periodically-forced minimal flow on $\mathbb{R}$. Finally, a counterexample is given to show that even for quasi-periodic equations, the results we obtain here cannot be further improved in general.