In this work we present a set-oriented path following method for the computation of relative global attractors of parameter-dependent dynamical systems. We start with an initial approximation of the relative global attractor for a fixed parameter λ0 computed by a set-oriented subdivision method. By using previously obtained approximations of the parameter-dependent relative global attractor we can track it with respect to a one-dimensional parameter λ > λ0 without restarting the whole subdivision procedure. We illustrate the feasibility of the set-oriented path following method by exploring the dynamics in low-dimensional models for shear flows during the transition to turbulence and of large-scale atmospheric regime changes .

In this work we extend the novel framework developed by Dellnitz, Hessel-von Molo, and Ziessler to the computation of finite dimensional unstable manifolds of infinite dimensional dynamical systems. To this end, we adapt a set-oriented continuation technique developed by Dellnitz and Hohmann for the computation of such objects of finite dimensional systems with the results obtained in the work of Dellnitz, Hessel-von Molo, and Ziessler. We show how to implement this approach for the analysis of partial differential equations and illustrate its feasibility by computing unstable manifolds of the one-dimensional Kuramoto--Sivashinsky equation as well as for the Mackey--Glass delay differential equation.

We investigate self-adjoint matrices A∈Rn,n with respect to their equivariance properties. We show in particular that a matrix is self-adjoint if and only if it is equivariant with respect to the action of a group Γ2(A)⊂O(n) which is isomorphic to ⊗nk=1Z2. If the self-adjoint matrix possesses multiple eigenvalues – this may, for instance, be induced by symmetry properties of an underlying dynamical system – then A is even equivariant with respect to the action of a group Γ(A)≃∏ki=1O(mi) where m1,…,mk are the multiplicities of the eigenvalues λ1,…,λk of A. We discuss implications of this result for equivariant bifurcation problems, and we briefly address further applications for the Procrustes problem, graph symmetries and Taylor expansions.