On travelling waves for the stochastic Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscunov equation (Q2583188)

This paper is concerned with properties of the wave speed for the stochastic perturbed Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piscunov (FKPP) equation. It was shown in the classical 1937 paper by Kolmogorov, Petrovsky and Piscunov that the large time behavior of the solution of the FKPP equation with Heaviside initial data is a travelling wave. In a seminal 1995 paper Mueller and Sowers proved that this also holds for a stochastically perturbed FKPP equation. There the wave speed was considered to depend on a small strength \(\sigma\) of the noise. In the present paper, travelling wave solutions of the stochastically perturbed FKPP equation are studied. The perturbation considered is a two-dimensional Gaussian white noise process proportional to the strength \(\sigma\) of the noise (\(\sigma\geq0\)). Assuming diffusion in the spatial \(z\)-space with time \(t\), it is found that for initial conditions of the solution \(w(z,t)=u(x+a(t),t),\;x\geq0\) of the stochastic perturbed FKPP equation satisfying the conditions \(u(x,0)=1\) for \(x\leq a(0)\), \(u(x,0)=0\) for \(x\geq b(0)\), and \(-\infty<a(0)<b(0)<\infty\), there exists a wave speed \(c(\sigma)>0\) for all \(\sigma>0\) such that \(\lim_{t\rightarrow\infty}[b(t)/t]=c(\sigma)\) with probability unity. Further it is shown, that for the considered initial conditions the asymptotic behavior of \(c(\sigma)\) has finite values. In cases of vanishing strength of noise (\(\sigma\rightarrow0\)), there exist a lower and a upper boundary of \(c(\sigma)\), and under the condition of extremely large strength of the noise (\(\sigma\rightarrow\infty\)), \(c(\sigma)\) possesses an upper boundary value.