We investigate the dynamics of the semiflow φ induced on H01(Ω) by the Cauchy problem of the semilinear parabolic equation
on Ω. Here
is a bounded smooth domain, and
has subcritical growth in u and satisfies
. In particular we are interested in the case when f is definite superlinear in u. The set
of attraction of 0 contains a decreasing family of invariant sets
distinguished by the rate of convergence
. We prove that the Wk’s are global submanifolds of
, and we find equilibria in the boundaries
. We also obtain results on nodal and comparison properties of these equilibria. In addition the paper contains a detailed exposition of the semigroup approach for semilinear equations, improving earlier results on stable manifolds and asymptotic behavior near an equilibrium.Supported by DFG Grant BA 1009/15-1.