Invariant manifolds for viscous profiles of a class of mixed hyperbolic-parabolic systems

We are concerned with viscous profiles (travelling waves and steady solutions) for mixed hyperbolic-parabolic systems in one space variable. For a class of systems including the compressible Navier Stokes equation, these profiles satisfy a singular ordinary differential equation in the form (0.1) dU/dt = 1/zeta(U) F(U). Here U takes values in R-d and F : R-d -> R-d is a regular function. The real valued function zeta(U) is as well regular, but the equation is singular because zeta(U) can attain the value 0. We focus on a small enough neighbourhood of a point (U) over bar satisfying F((U) over bar) = (0) over bar, zeta((U) over bar) = 0. From the point of view of the applications to the study of hyperbolic-parabolic systems this means restricting to systems with small total variation. We discuss how to extend the notions of center manifold and of uniformly stable manifold. Also, we give conditions ensuring that if zeta(U) 0 at t = 0 then zeta(U) not equal 0 at every t. We provide an example showing that if zeta(U) becomes zero in finite time then in general the solution U of equation (0.1) is not continuously differentiable.