Travelling fronts for monostable reaction-diffusion systems with gradient-dependence. (Q1413011)

Consider the existence and stability of the travelling-front solutions for the parabolic systems of the form: \[ u_t=Au_{xx}+f(u,u_x),\;x\in {\mathcal{R}},\;t>0,\;u(x,t)\in{\mathcal{R}}^N,\eqno(1) \] where \(A\) ia a positive-definite diagonal matrix. The nonlinearity \(f\) is a ``monostable'' function with equilibria \(E^-<E^+,E^-\) ``stable'' and \(E^+\) ``unstable'', that depends not only on \(u\) but also on \(u_x\) and satisfies both conditions sufficient for a comparison principle to hold for (1) (so is ``weakly-coupled''), and also either a subquadratic growth condition in \(u_x\) or alternatively a mild monotonicity property in \(u_x\). It is shown that there exist \(c^*\) and \(c_0\) with \(c^*>c_0\) such that there is a ``stable-monotone direction'' at \(E^+\) for all \(c\geq c_0\), and travelling-front solutions \(w_c(x-ct)\) of (1) that connect \(E^-\) to \(E^+\) exist for all \(c\geq c^*\) (\(c^*\neq c_0\) in general). The author then discuss the stability of fronts of speed \(c>c_0\) in the framework of exponentially weighted spaces, using the \textit{D. H. Sattinger}'s approach [Adv. Math. 22, 312--355 (1976; Zbl 0344.35051)] or Volperts [Transl. Math. Monogr., Am. Math. Soc., Vol. 140 (1994)]. It is revealed that the stability of travelling front \(w_c\) depends on whether \(w_c'\) belongs to a \(c-\)dependent space \(X_c\). If \(w'_c\in X_c\), the solution \(u^{\phi}\) of (1) with initial data \(\phi\in BUC^1\) converges in \(X_c\) to a translate of \(w_c\) if \(\phi(x)-w_c(x)\) is small when \(| x| \) is large and \(\phi\) behaves like \(w_c\) in a neighbourhood of the ``unstable'' equilibrium \(E^+\). If \(w'_c\not\in X_c\), the theorem is local: \(u^{\phi}\) converges to \(w_c\) in \(X_c\) if \(\phi\) is close to \(w_c\) in \(X_c\). It is also shown that for the scalar equations, at most one front solution of (1) can have ``fast-decay'', and if such a front exists, its velocity must be \(c=c^*\).