Wavefront solutions of a nonlinear telegraph equation (Q695079)

The paper is devoted to the analysis of wave front solutions \(u(x,t)\) (i.e., \(u(x,t)=\varphi (x-ct)\), \(\varphi (\eta )\rightarrow u^{\pm }\) for \(\eta \pm \infty \), \(u^{+}\neq u^{-}\), \(f(u^{\pm })=0\)) to the equation \[ \varepsilon ^2u_{tt}+g(u)u_t=(k(u)u_x)_x+f(u). \] Let \(k_0=\min \{k(u)\: 0\leq u\leq 1\}\) and \(k_1=\max \{k(u)\: 0\leq u\leq 1\}\). Under some conditions on \(f,g,k\) the spectra of wave speeds (i.e., the sets of all \(c\) for which the above equation has a wave front solution) are characterized in the sub-characteristic (\(c^2\varepsilon ^2<k_0\)), super-characteristic (\(c^2\varepsilon ^2>k_1\)) and trans-characteristic (\(k_0\leq c^2\varepsilon ^2\leq k_1\)) situations. Models of branching random walks, conduction in transmission lines and biological dispersal illustrate the results.