Qualitative behavior of numerical traveling solutions for reaction–diffusion equations with memory (Q5713486)

The Fisher reaction-diffusion equation represents a second-order parabolic partial differential equation (PDE). In case of fast reaction rates, the velocity of the corresponding travelling wave solutions becomes unphysically large. Alternatively, the generalised Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrovski-Piskunov equation, which includes the memory of previous times via a second-order integro-differential equation, yields a more correct velocity. The authors apply the known strategy to describe reaction-diffusion procedures by equations of telegraph type. Consequently, the equivalence of initial value problems for the generalised equation to initial value problems of a hyperbolic PDE of second order is proved. The hyperbolic PDE implies additional estimates concerning the sensitivity of solutions with respect to initial conditions. To solve the hyperbolic equation numerically, the authors use finite difference methods. Firstly, an explicit method is considered, which causes stability problems, since the von Neumann criterion demands tiny step sizes for fast reaction rates. Numerical simulations verify this behaviour. Secondly, an implicit-explicit method is discussed, which is able to apply larger step sizes. Numerical results demonstrate better approximations than for the explicit method, but parasitic oscillations still arise. Nevertheless, the authors are able to show analytically and via numerical simulations that both schemes reproduce travelling waves, where the resulting velocity represents a first-order approximation of the velocity corresponding to the exact solution.