Existence of travelling wave solutions in a tissue interaction model for skin pattern formation (Q1416646): Difference between revisions

The problem of existence of travelling wave solutions in a model for skin pattern formation leads to the following boundary value problem with singularly perturbed differential equations \[ \begin{gathered} \beta\varepsilon^2{d^4v\over dz^4}- \mu\varepsilon{d^3v\over dz^3}- \varepsilon{d^2v\over dz^2}+ \rho v={\rho n\over 1+\nu(1-\varepsilon\tau\rho_1 v'')},\\ \varepsilon{d^2n\over dz^2}- {dn\over dz}+ n(1- n)= \varepsilon\alpha{d\over dz}\Biggl(n{d\over dz}\Biggl({1-\varepsilon\tau\rho_1 v''\over 1+\gamma_n}\Biggr)\Biggr),\\ \lim_{z\to-\infty} (v,n)= (0,0),\quad \lim_{z\to+\infty} (v,n)= \Biggl({1\over 1+\nu}, 1\Biggr),\end{gathered}\tag{\(*\)} \] where \(\varepsilon\) and \(\rho_1\) are positive small parameters, \(c\) is the wave speed. The author proves that for sufficiently small \(\varepsilon\), problem \((*)\) has a solution \((v_\varepsilon, n_\varepsilon)\) satisfying for any nonnegative integer \(j\) and \(z\in (-\infty,\infty)\) \[ \Biggl|{d^j\over dz^j} \Biggl(v_\varepsilon(z)- {e^z/(1+ e^z)\over 1+\nu}\Biggr)\Biggr|\leq c_j\varepsilon,\;\Biggl|{d^j\over dz^j} \Biggl(n_\varepsilon(z)- {e^z\over 1+e^z}\Biggr)\Biggr|\leq c_j\varepsilon, \] where the constant \(c_j\) does not depend on \(\varepsilon\). The proof is based on the contraction mapping theorem. The paper provides a mathematical justification of results given numerically by \textit{G. C. Cruywagen}, \textit{P. K. Maini} and \textit{J. D. Murray} [J. Math. Biol. 33, 193--210 (1994; Zbl 0808.92011)].