Stability analysis for standing pulse solutions to FitzHugh-Nagumo equations (Q2636861)

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Stability analysis for standing pulse solutions to FitzHugh-Nagumo equations
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    Stability analysis for standing pulse solutions to FitzHugh-Nagumo equations (English)
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    18 February 2014
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    The main results of this paper are related to the standing pulses in a version of FitzHugh-Nagumo equation which is characterized by the presence of diffusion in both equations, \[ u_t=d u_{xx}+(1-u)(u-\beta)u -v, \] \[ \tau v_t= v_{xx}+u-\gamma v, \] where \(\beta \in (0,0.5)\) and \(d\), \(\gamma\), \(\tau \in (0,\infty)\). The existence of the standing pulse in this system is shown using the calculus of variations in [\textit{C.-N. Chen} and \textit{Y. S. Choi}, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 206, No. 3, 741--777 (2012; Zbl 1264.35119)]. The paper by Chen and Hu addresses the stability of that standing pulse. In part, the motivation for this work stemmed from the work [\textit{E. Yanagida}, J. Math. Biol. 22, 81--104 (1985; Zbl 0566.92009)] which contains a criterion for an instability of standing pulses of skew-gradient systems. In this paper sufficient conditions for an instability of the standing pulses are formulated in terms of the size of the parameter \(\tau\) and and in terms of the Maslov index defined as in the previous work [\textit{C.-N. Chen} and \textit{X. Hu}, Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Anal. Non Linéaire 24, No. 4, 589--603 (2007; Zbl 1202.37081)]. More precisely, it is proved that the standing pulse is unstable if \(\tau\) is sufficiently large, or if it is known that the Maslov index is larger than zero. The procedure of calculating the Maslov index by using the spectral flow is described. A stability criterion is obtained under the assumption that the zero eigenvalue is simple: the standing pulse then is stable if the Maslov index is zero and \(\tau <\gamma^2\). The relationship of the Evans function with the parity of Maslov index is also discussed.
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    Maslov index
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    standing pulses
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    Fitzhugh-Nagumo system
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    spectrum
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    stability
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    Evans function
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