Spreading in space-time periodic media governed by a monostable equation with free boundaries. II: Spreading speed (Q2323956)

The authors continue their work of classifying the long-time behavior of the solution to a free boundary problem with monostable reaction term in space-time periodic media. In the first part [\textit{W. Ding} et al., J. Differ. Equations 262, No. 10, 4988--5021 (2017; Zbl 1422.35102)], the authors established the existence and uniqueness of solutions to this problem with continuous initial functions, as well as a spreading-vanishing dichotomy. In the current paper, the authors are interested in the long-time behavior to a class of space-time periodic reaction-diffusion equations with free boundaries of the form: \[ u_t=du_{xx}+f(t,x,u), \ g(t) < x< h(t), \ t>0, \] \[ u(t,g(t))=u(t,h(t))=0, \ t>0, \] \[ g'(t)=-\mu u_x(t,g(t)), \ t>0, \] \[ h'(t)=-\mu u_x(t,h(t)), \ t>0, \] \[ g(0)=g_0, \ g(0)=h_0, \ u(0,x)=u_0(x), \ g_0\le x\le h_0. \] Here \(x=g(t), x=h(t)\) are the moving boundaries to be determined along with \(u(t,x)\), and \(d, \mu>0\) are constants. The key proof of the paper is inspired by methods of \textit{H. F. Weinberger} [SIAM J. Math. Anal. 13, 353--396 (1982; Zbl 0529.92010); J. Math. Biol. 45, No. 6, 511--548 (2002; Zbl 1058.92036)], where the authors prove the existence of asymptotic spreading speed when spreading happens, without knowing a priori the existence of the corresponding semi-wave solutions of the free boundary problem.