Path-Connectedness in Global Bifurcation Theory

A celebrated result in bifurcation theory is that global connected sets of non-trivial solutions bifurcate from trivial solutions at non-zero eigenvalues of odd algebraic multiplicity of the linearized problem when the operators involved are compact. In this paper a simple example is constructed which satisfies the regularity hypotheses of the global bifurcation theorem, and the eigenvalue has algebraic multiplicity one, yet all the path-connected components of the connected sets that bifurcate are singletons. Another example shows that even when the operators are everywhere infinitely differentiable and classical bifurcation occurs locally at a simple eigenvalue, the global continuum may not be path-connected away from the bifurcation point. A third example shows that the non-trivial solutions which, by variational theory, bifurcate from eigenvalues of any multiplicity when the problem has gradient structure, may not be connected and may contain no paths except singletons.