Periodic traveling waves with large speed (Q6041847)

The authors consider large-speed periodic travelling waves (PTWs), or wave trains, in a general family of two-component reaction-diffusion systems which model the interaction of two species that act as resource and consumer, respectively. Specifically, they first show the existence of small-amplitude PTWs that arise through Hopf bifurcation around a weak focus, in extension of results in [\textit{J.R. Bennett} and \textit{J.A. Sherratt}, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 77, No. 6, 2136--2155 (2017; Zbl 1387.35089)], as well as of large-amplitude PTWs that bifurcate from degenerate limit cycles of the underlying kinetic system [\textit{N. Kopell} and \textit{L.N. Howard}, Stud. Appl. Math. 52, 291-328 (1973; Zbl 0305.35081)]. Second, they derive the dominant asymptotics of the corresponding period functions. Third, they provide sufficient conditions for the spectral instability of PTWs on the basis of explicit expressions for the leading-order terms in those period functions [\textit{A. Gasull}, \textit{V. Mañosa}, and \textit{J. Villadelprat}, J. Differ. Equations 213, No. 2, 255--288 (2005; Zbl 1081.34037)]; furthermore, they explore the local stability properties of perturbed PTWs by linearisation. Finally, the authors illustrate their results by applying them to a host-generalist parasitoid model for the biological control of a leafminer population [\textit{C. Magal}, et al., Math. Med. Biol. 25, No. 1, 1--20 (2008; Zbl 1146.92033)]. The analysis is based on the geometric singular perturbation theory due to \textit{N. Fenichel} [J. Differ. Equations 31, 53--98 (1979; Zbl 0476.34034)], with the large wave speed implying a natural perturbation parameter, in combination with standard bifurcation theory for planar dynamical systems.