co-solutions and inheritance of stability

We consider the dynamics of semiflows of patterns on unbounded domains that are equivariant under a noncompact group action. We exploit the unbounded nature of the domain in a setting where there is a strong ‘global’ norm and a weak ‘local’ norm. Relative equilibria whose group orbits are closed manifolds for a compact group action need not be closed in a noncompact setting; the closure of a group orbit of a solution can contain ‘co-solutions’. The main result of the paper is to show that co-solutions inherit stability in the sense that co-solutions of a Lyapunov stable pattern are also stable (but in a weaker sense). This means that the existence of a single group orbit of stable relative equilibria may force the existence of quite distinct group orbits of relative equilibria, and these are also stable. This is in contrast to the case for finite dimensional dynamical systems where group orbits of relative equilibria are typically isolated.