Renormalization group for fronts and patterns

MaRDI QIDQ4208490zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors J. Bricmont, Antti Kupiainen

Publication date 17 March 1999

zbMATH Keywords

Ginzburg-Landau equationKolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov/Fisher equationSwift-Hohenberg equation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Nonlinear parabolic equations (35K55) Reaction-diffusion equations (35K57) Nonlinear initial, boundary and initial-boundary value problems for linear parabolic equations (35K60) Stefan problems, phase changes, etc. (80A22)

Review text

This is a brief overview of formally rigorous mathematical results obtained in various nonlinear parabolic equations and systems of equations, a prototype being the Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov/Fisher equation for a real function \(u(x,t)\): \[ u_t=u_{xx} +u(1-u).\tag{1} \] (1) has two obvious constant solutions, \(u=1\), and \(u=0\). There is a class of traveling front solutions of the form \(u = u(x-ct)\), which describe invasion of the unstable ``phase, \(u=0\), by the stable one, \(u=1\). In the case of (1), and in many other cases, the spectrum of the front's velocities \(c\) is semiinfinite, \(c\geq c_0\), the front propagating at the smallest velocity \(c_0\) being an absolutely stable strong attractor, while the other solutions are only metastable. The paper mentions formal results of this type obtained in several other known models, such as the real Ginzburg-Landau equation, a specially constructed two-component reaction-diffusion system, and the Swift-Hohenberg equation. The results are obtained by means of the so-called renormalization-group method, which treats the steadily moving fronts as fixed points of some operator, and their stability is studied as that of the fixed points. However, the review completely ignors many important (and more nontrivial) results for problems of this type, obtained, at a less rigorous level, in the vast physics literature. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0893.00027].

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Cited in

(2)

• Stability of moving fronts in the Ginzburg-Landau equation
• Front interactions in a three-component system

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