Bistable transition fronts in R^N

DOI10.1016/J.AIM.2015.11.033MaRDI QIDQ904017zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors François Hamel

Publication date 15 January 2016

Published in Advances in Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.4817

zbMATH Keywords

front propagation parabolic partial differential equations qualitative properties reaction-diffusion equations

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Traveling wave solutions (35C07) Reaction-diffusion equations (35K57)

Abstract: This paper is chiefly concerned with qualitative properties of some reaction-diffusion fronts. The recently defined notions of transition fronts generalize the standard notions of traveling fronts. In this paper, we show the existence and the uniqueness of the global mean speed of bistable transition fronts in R^N. This speed is proved to be independent of the shape of the level sets of the fronts. The planar fronts are also characterized in the more general class of almost-planar fronts with any number of transition layers. These qualitative properties show the robustness of the notions of transition fronts. But we also prove the existence of new types of transition fronts in R^N that are not standard traveling fronts, thus showing that the notions of transition fronts are broad enough to include other relevant propagating solutions.

Review text

In this paper, the author considers the semilinear parabolic equation \[ u_t=\Delta u+f(u),\;(t,x)\in \mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{R}^N, \tag{1} \] where the nonlinearity \(f\) has two stable zeros, say \(0\) and \(1\) such that \(f'(0)<0\) and \(f'(1)<0\). If one additionally assumes that \[ \exists \;\theta \in (0,1)\text{ such that } f<0 \text{ in }(0,\theta)\text{ and }f>0\text{ in }(\theta,1),\tag{2} \] then it is known that (1) admits standard planar traveling front solutions of the form \(u(t,x)=\phi_f(x.e-c_ft)\) where \(e\) in an arbitrary unit vector in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), for some unique (up to translations) one-dimensional kink profile \(\phi_f\) which decreases from \(1\) to \(0\), and a unique speed \(c_f\in \mathbb{R}\). Moreover, if \(N\geq 2\), a variety of traveling fronts with non-planar level sets, still invariant in a moving frame with constant speed, are known to exist. Here the author is concerned with recently defined notions of transition front solutions for (1), called generalized fronts, which are not necessarily invariant in a moving frame with constant speed. Besides of only one proposition, he does not assume the extra condition (2). Instead, he merely assumes the existence (and then the uniqueness) of a planar front solution of (1) connecting the stable states \(1\) and \(0\) along some direction \(e\). Roughly, generalized front solutions are defined as entire solutions of (1) that converge (spatially) to the stable states \(0\) or \(1\) far away from their moving or stationary level sets, uniformly in time. One can also define a global mean speed for such solutions. In this paper, the author proves the existence and the uniqueness of the global mean speed of any such generalized front. He also establishes some one-dimensional symmetry properties (in analogy to Gibonns' conjecture for the time independent problem) and various classiffcation results related to the shape of the level sets of the fronts. Furthermore, he proves the existence of new type of transition fronts in that are not known standard traveling fronts.

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