Refined estimates for the propagation speed of the transition solution to a free boundary problem with a nonlinearity of combustion type (Q1643166)

The paper deals with the free boundary problem of nonlinear diffusion equations \[ \begin{cases} u_t=u_{xx}+f(u),\quad t>0,\quad g(t)<x<h(t),\\ u(t,g(t))=u(t,h(t))=0,\quad t>0,\\ g'(t)=-\mu u_x(t,g(t)),\quad t>0,\\ h'(t)=-\mu u_x(t,h(t)),\quad t>0,\\ -g(0)=h(0)=h_0,\quad u(0,x)=u_0(x),\quad -h_0\leq x\leq h_0, \end{cases} \] where \(x=g(t)\) and \(x=h(t)\) are the expanding fronts, \(\mu\) and \(h_0\) are given positive constants, and the nonlinear reaction term \(f\) is a locally Lipschitz continuous function with \(f(u)=0\) in \([0,\theta]\), \(f(u)>0\) in \((\theta,1)\), \(f(u)<0\) in \((1,\infty)\) for some constant \(\theta\in (0,1)\), and there exist constants \(p\geq 1\) and small \(\sigma>0\) such that \(f(u)=(u-\theta)^p\) in \([\theta,\theta+\sigma)\). By using two different approaches, the authors establish upper and lower bound estimates on \(g\) and \(h\) for the transition solution.