Date:	Mon, September 21, 2009
Time:	17:15
Place:	Research II Lecture Hall

Abstract: In the calculus of variations the well-known mountain-pass theorem is an example of a minimax principle. These principles are based on the deformation lemma which shows how level sets of a functional are deformed in the descent direction (gradient flow). The functional needs to have a certain compactness property. In the talk a one-parameter family of functionals admitting unbounded Palais-Smale sequences will be considered. A modified gradient flow will be constructed in order to prove a deformation lemma.