Min-Max Variational Principle and Front Speeds in Random Shear Flows

A Variational Principle Based Study of KPP Minimal Front Speeds in Random Shears

Variational principle for Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov (KPP) minimal front speeds provides an efficient tool for statistical speed analysis, as well as a fast and accurate method for speed computation. A variational principle based analysis is carried out on the ensemble of KPP speeds through spatially stationary random shear flows inside infinite channel domains. In the regime of small root mean square (rms) shear amplitude, the enhancement of the ensemble averaged KPP front speeds is proved to obey the quadratic law under certain shear moment conditions. Similarly, in the large rms amplitud…

Sharp Asymptotics for KPP Pulsating Front Speed-up and Diffusion Enhancement by Flows

We study KPP pulsating front speed-up and effective diffusivity enhancement by general periodic incompressible flows. We prove the existence of and determine the limits $c^*(A)/A$ and $D(A)/A^2$ as $A\to\infty$, where $c^*(A)$ is the minimal front speed and $D(A)$ the effective diffusivity.

Transition Fronts of Fisher-KPP Equations in Locally Spatially Inhomogeneous Patchy Environments I: Existence and Non-existence

This paper is devoted to the study of spatial propagation dynamics of species in locally spatially inhomogeneous patchy environments or media. For a lattice differential equation with monostable nonlinearity in a discrete homogeneous media, it is well-known that there exists a minimal wave speed such that a traveling front exists if and only if the wave speed is not slower than this minimal wave speed. We shall show that strongly localized spatial inhomogeneous patchy environments may prevent the existence of transition fronts (generalized traveling fronts). Transition fronts may exist in weak…

Monostable pulled fronts and logarithmic drifts

In this work we investigate the issue of logarithmic drifts in the position of the level sets of solutions of monostable reaction-diusion equations, with respect to the traveling front with minimal speed. On the one hand, it is a celebrated result of Bramson that such a logarithmic drift occurs when the reaction is of the KPP (or sublinear) type. On the other hand, it is also known that this drift phenomenon disappears when the minimal front speed is nonlinearly determined. However, some monostable reaction-diusion equations fall in neither of those cases and our aim is to fill that gap. We pr…

Maximizing the spreading speed of KPP fronts in two-dimensional stratified media

We consider the equation $u_t=u_{xx}+u_{yy}+b(x)f(u)+g(u)$, $(x,y)\in\mathbb R^2$ with monostable nonliearity, where $b(x)$ is a nonnegative measure on $\mathbb R$ that is periodic in $x.$ In the case where $b(x)$ is a smooth periodic function, there exists a pulsating travelling wave that propagates in the direction $(\cosθ,\sinθ)$ -- with average speed $c$ if and only if $c\geq c^*(θ,b),$ where $c^*(θ,b)$ is a certain positive number depending on $b.$ Moreover, the quantity $w(θ;{b})=\min_{|θ-ϕ|<\fracπ{2}}c^*(ϕ;{b})/\cos(θ-ϕ)$ is called the spreading speed. This theory can be extended by sho…

KPP Pulsating Front Speed-up by Flows

We obtain a criterion for pulsating front speed-up by general periodic incompressible flows in two dimensions and in the presence of KPP nonlinearities. We achieve this by showing that the ratio of the minimal front speed and the effective diffusivity of the flow is bounded away from zero and infinity by constants independent of the flow. We also study speed-up of reaction-diffusion fronts by various examples of flows in two and three dimensions.

缓慢振荡环境中的双稳态脉冲波前 *

Bistable pulsating fronts in slowly oscillating environments *

本文研究了具有大周期的空间周期双稳态介质中的反应-扩散波前，证明了当空间周期趋于无穷时双稳态波前速度极限的存在性并给出显式公式，同时证明波前剖面收敛至空间齐次方程对应的波前剖面族。

Hyperbolic traveling waves driven by growth

We perform the analysis of a hyperbolic model which is the analog of the Fisher-KPP equation. This model accounts for particles that move at maximal speed $ε^{-1}$ ($ε\textgreater{}0$), and proliferate according to a reaction term of monostable type. We study the existence and stability of traveling fronts. We exhibit a transition depending on the parameter $ε$: for small $ε$ the behaviour is essentially the same as for the diffusive Fisher-KPP equation. However, for large $ε$ the traveling front with minimal speed is discontinuous and travels at the maximal speed $ε^{-1}$. The traveling front…

Pulsating travelling fronts: Asymptotics and homogenization regimes

This paper is concerned with some nonlinear propagation phenomena for reaction-advection-diffusion equations with Kolmogrov-Petrovsky-Piskunov (KPP) type nonlinearities in general periodic domains or in infinite cylinders with oscillating boundaries. Having a variational formula for the minimal speed of propagation involving eigenvalue problems ( proved in Berestycki, Hamel and Nadirashvili \cite{BHN1}), we consider the minimal speed of propagation as a function of diffusion factors, reaction factors and periodicity parameters. There we study the limits, the asymptotic behaviors and the variat…

Spreading speeds and pulsating fronts for a field-road model in a spatially periodic habitat

A reaction-diffusion model which is called the field-road model was introduced by Berestycki, Roquejoffre and Rossi [9] to describe biological invasion with fast diffusion on a line. In this paper, we investigate this model in a heterogeneous landscape and establish the existence of the asymptotic spreading speed c * as well as its coincidence with the minimal wave speed of pulsating fronts along the road. We start with a truncated problem with an imposed Dirichlet boundary condition. We prove the existence of spreading speed c * R which coincides with the minimal speed of pulsating fronts for…

The homogenized equation of a heterogenous Reaction-Diffusion model involving pulsating traveling fronts

The goal of this paper is to find the homogenized equation of a heterogenous Fisher-KPP model in a periodic medium. The solutions of this model are pulsating travelling fronts whose \emph{speeds} are superior to a parametric minimal speed $c^*_L$. We first find the homogenized limit of the stationary states which depend on the space variable in many cases. Then, we prove that the pulsating travelling fronts converge to a classical $u_0:=u_0(t,x)$ of a homogenous reaction-diffusion equation. The homogenized limit $u_0$ is also a travelling front whose minimal speed of propagation is given in te…

Reaction-Diffusion Front Speed Enhancement by Flows

We study flow-induced enhancement of the speed of pulsating traveling fronts for reaction-diffusion equations, and quenching of reaction by fluid flows. We prove, for periodic flows in two dimensions and any combustion-type reaction, that the front speed is proportional to the square root of the (homogenized) effective diffusivity of the flow. We show that this result does not hold in three and more dimensions. We also prove conjectures from [1,3,11] for cellular flows, concerning the rate of speed-up of fronts and the minimal flow amplitude necessary to quench solutions with initial data of a…

Two-Dimensional Curved Fronts in a Periodic Shear Flow

This paper is devoted to the study of travelling fronts of reaction-diffusion equations with periodic advection in the whole plane $\mathbb R^2$. We are interested in curved fronts satisfying some "conical" conditions at infinity. We prove that there is a minimal speed $c^*$ such that curved fronts with speed $c$ exist if and only if $c\geq c^*$. Moreover, we show that such curved fronts are decreasing in the direction of propagation, that is they are increasing in time. We also give some results about the asymptotic behaviors of the speed with respect to the advection, diffusion and reaction …

Pulsating Front Speed-up and Quenching of Reaction by Fast Advection

We consider reaction-diffusion equations with combustion-type non-linearities in two dimensions and study speed-up of their pulsating fronts by general periodic incompressible flows with a cellular structure. We show that the occurence of front speed-up in the sense $\lim_{A\to\infty} c_*(A)=\infty$, with $A$ the amplitude of the flow and $c_*(A)$ the (minimal) front speed, only depends on the geometry of the flow and not on the reaction function. In particular, front speed-up happens for KPP reactions if and only if it does for ignition reactions. We also show that the flows which achieve thi…