Blocking and invasion for reaction-diffusion equations in periodic media (Q1800892)

The authors consider the reaction-diffusion equations of the form \[ \begin{cases} \partial_tu=\nabla\cdot(A(x)\nabla u)+q(x)\cdot\nabla u+f(x,u), & t>0,\;x\in\Omega \\ \nu\cdot A(x)\nabla u=0, & t>0,\;x\in\partial\Omega. \end{cases} \] in periodic media; e.g., \(\Omega=\mathbb{R}^N\setminus (K+L\mathbb{Z}^N)\) for some compact set \(K\subset\mathbb{R}^N\) and \(L>0\). Under consideration is the problem of \textit{invasion}: there are compactly supported non-negative initial datum such that solutions of the above problem converge locally uniformly to \(1\) as time goes to infinity. The first main result is to obtain a relation between invasion and front-like solutions. Precisely, invasion occurs for all solutions with non-negative front-like initial data. Secondly, a negative result is given to the case, when invasion occurs for a single front-like datum, then invasion holds for some compactly supported data.