Forward attraction in nonautonomous difference equations

Abstract

Two types of attractors consisting of families of sets that are mapped into each other under the dynamics have been defined for nonautonomous difference equations, one using pullback convergence with information about the system in the past and the other using forward convergence with information about the system in the future. In both cases, the component sets are constructed using a pullback argument within a positively invariant family of sets. The forward attractor so constructed also uses information about the past, which is very restrictive and not essential for determining future behaviour. Here an alternative is investigated, essentially the omega-limit set of the system, which Chepyzhov and Vishik called the uniform attractor. It is shown here that this set is asymptotically positively invariant, thus providing it with an hitherto missing form of invariance, if in somewhat weaker than usual, that one expects an attractor to possess. As a consequence this set provides useful information about the behaviour in current time during the approach to the limit.