The asymptotic critical wave speed in a family of scalar reaction-diffusion equations (Q865318)

In this paper it is studied the nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation \(u_t=u_{xx}+2u^m(1-u)\), where \(m\geq 1\). This class of problems includes the Fisher-Kolmogorov-Petrowskii-Piscounov equation (for \(m=1\)) and the bistable equation with degenerate cubic nonlinearity (for \(m=2\)). The authors are mainly concerned with the qualitative analysis of the critical wave speed \(c_{\text{crit}}(m)\), which corresponds to the existence of traveling wave solutions for any \(c\geq c_{\text{crit}}(m)\). The main result of the present paper establishes the \(C^\infty\)-regularity of \(c_{\text{crit}}(m)\) in \(m^{-1}\), as well as the asymptotic behaviour of \(c_{\text{crit}}(m)\) as \(m\rightarrow\infty\). The proof relies upon a global technique which is related to a certain geometric desingularization of some families of vector fields.