Quantitative steepness, semi-FKPP reactions, and pushmi-pullyu fronts (Q6080949)

The authors consider a reaction-diffusion equation \[u_t = u_{xx} + f(u), \] where it is assumed that \(f(u) \geq 0\), for \(u\in [0,1]\), \(f(0)=f(1)=0\), \(f^{\prime}(0) >0\), \(f(u)>0\) for \(u\in (0,1)\). The paper is devoted to the analysis of the transition between pushed and pulled fronts that the system is known to have. It is also known that the preference of the equation for a pulled or a pushed front is related to the steepness of a solution to this equation with the initial condition \(u(0,x)=1(x\leq 0)\) compared to the steepness of the slowest monotone front. The authors note that the condition that the solution evolved from this initial condition is steeper than the front moving with the critical speed is equivalent to the fact that any shift of the critical front intersects the profile of that solution just once. The authors define a function which they call the shape defect function that measures the distance between such solutions and the critical front and capture the argument above.