Entire solutions of reaction-advection-diffusion equations with bistable nonlinearity in cylinders (Q1019666)

The authors deal with the semilinear reaction-advection-diffusion equation in infinite cylinders of the form \[ \begin{cases}\frac{\partial u(x,t)}{\partial t}= \Delta u(x,t)-\alpha (x,t) \frac{\partial u(x,t) }{\partial x_1} +f(u(x,t) ), &(x,t) \in \Sigma \times \mathbb R, \\ \frac{\partial u(x,t)}{\partial \nu}=0, &(x,t) \in \partial \Sigma \times \mathbb R, \end{cases} \tag{1} \] where \(x=(x_1,t) \in \Sigma =\mathbb R\times \Omega\), \(\Omega \subset \mathbb R^{n-1}\) is a bounded convex smooth domain, and \(\alpha\in C^{1,\delta}(\overline{\Omega})\) for some \(\delta \in (0,1)\). A bistable nonlinearity \(f\) means that \(f\in C^2(\mathbb R)\) and satisfies \(f(0)= f(\theta)= f(1)\), \(f'(0) <0\), \(f'(\theta)>0\), \(f(s)<0\), \(s\in(0,\theta)\), \(f(s)>0\), \(s\in (\theta,1)\). The authors establish the existence of entire solutions of (1) when the nonlinearity satisfies the conditions mentioned above. They assume that (1) admits three equilibria: two stable equilibria \(0\) and \(1\), and an unstable equilibrium \(\theta\). Using the fact that there are different wave fronts connecting any two of those three equilibria, the authors establish three different types of entire solution by considering a combination of any two of those traveling fronts and constructing appropriate subsolutions and supersolutions. Finally, the authors give an example to illustrate their result and launch an open problem, i.e., the case when the nonlinearity \(f\) has multizeros in \((0,1)\).