Oscillatory reaction-diffusion equations with temporally varying parameters (Q596838)

The authors of this very interesting paper study the ``\(\lambda\)-\(\omega \)'' class of reaction-diffusion systems. These have the general form \[ {\partial u\over\partial t}={\partial^2 u\over\partial x^2}+\lambda (r)u-\omega (r)v, \] \[ {\partial v\over\partial t}={\partial^2 v\over\partial x^2}+\omega (r)u+\lambda (r)v, \] where \(r=(u^2+v^2)^{1/2}\), and \(\lambda (0)\) and \(\omega (0)\) are both strictly positive. This type of equations is a standard prototype for oscillatory reaction-diffusion systems. The form of these equations facilitates analytical study. Such systems are widely used as models for oscillatory phenomena in chemistry, ecology and cell biology. The authors restrict their attention to the case \(\lambda (r)=\lambda_0 (t)-r^2\), \(\omega (r)=\omega_0-\omega_1r^2\), where \(\omega_0\),\(\omega_1>0\), and \(\lambda_0\) depends on \(t\). Periodic wave trains are the generic one-dimensional solution form for reaction-diffusion equations with a limit cycle in the kinetics. Of special interest is the way in which periodic waves solutions of such systems are modified by periodic forcing of kinetic parameters. Such forcing occurs in many ecological models due to the seasonal variations. The temporal forcing for systems close to the case of supercritical Hopf bifurcation in the kinetics is studied in detail. It is shown that if the kinetics is approximated by the Hopf normal form, then the reaction-diffusion system is of ``\(\lambda\)-\(\omega\)'' type. Numerical simulations show that a temporal variation in the kinetic parameters causes the wave train amplitude to oscillate in time, whereas in the absence of any temporal forcing, this wave train amplitude is constant. Exploiting the mathematical simplicity of the ``\(\lambda\)-\(\omega\)'' form, the authors derive analytically an approximation to the amplitude of the wave train oscillations with small forcing. An interesting conclusion is that the amplitude of these oscillations depends crucially on the period of forcing.