Existence and global bounds for a fluid model of plasma display technology

This article considers the fluid model for the discharge of plasma particle species in display technology. The fluid equations are coupled with Poisson's equation, which describes the effect of the charged particles on the electric field. The diffusion and mobility coefficients for the positive ion particles depend on the electric field, while those for the electrons depend on the electron mean energy. The reaction rates are proportional to the products of the densities of the reacting particles involved in the particular ionization, conversion or recombination reactions. Moreover, the ionization coefficients are dependent on the electric field, which varies spatially and temporally. The main ionization and discharge reactions are described by an initial-boundary value problem for a system of coupled parabolic–elliptic partial differential equations. The system is first analyzed by upper–lower solution method. By means of the a priori bounds obtained for an arbitrary time, the existence of solution for the initial-boundary value problem is proved in an appropriate Hölder space.     

Normal deviations from the averaged motion for some reaction–diffusion equations with fast oscillating perturbation

We study the normalized difference between the solution u of a reaction–diffusion equation in a bounded interval [0,L], perturbed by a fast oscillating term arising as the solution of a stochastic reaction–diffusion equation with a strong mixing behavior, and the solution of the corresponding averaged equation. We assume the smoothness of the reaction coefficient and we prove that a central limit type theorem holds. Namely, we show that the normalized difference converges weakly in C([0,T];L²(0,L)) to the solution of the linearized equation, where an extra Gaussian term appears. Such a term is explicitly given.     

Asymptotic stability of traveling wave fronts in nonlocal reaction–diffusion equations with delay

This paper is concerned with the asymptotic stability of traveling wave fronts of a class of nonlocal reaction–diffusion equations with delay. Under monostable assumption, we prove that the traveling wave front is exponentially stable by means of the (technical) weighted energy method, when the initial perturbation around the wave is suitable small in a weighted norm. The exponential convergent rate is also obtained. Finally, we apply our results to some population models and obtain some new results, which recover, complement and/or improve a number of existing ones.     

On entropy stable schemes for degenerate parabolic multispecies kinematic flow models

Entropy stable schemes for the numerical solution of initial value problems of nonlinear, possibly strongly degenerate systems of convection–diffusion equations were recently proposed in Jerez and Parés's study. These schemes extend the theoretical framework of Tadmor's study to convection–diffusion systems. They arise from entropy conservative schemes by adding a small amount of viscosity to avoid spurious oscillations. The main condition for feasibility of entropy conservative or stable schemes for a given model is that the corresponding first‐order system of conservation laws possesses a convex entropy function and corresponding entropy flux, and that the diffusion matrix multiplied by the inverse of the Hessian of the entropy is positive semidefinite. As a new contribution, it is demonstrated in the present work, first, that these schemes can naturally be extended to initial‐boundary value problems with zero‐flux boundary conditions in one space dimension, including an explicit bound on the growth of the total entropy. Second, it is shown that these assumptions are satisfied by certain diffusively corrected multiclass kinematic flow models of arbitrary size that describe traffic flow or the settling of dispersions and emulsions, where the latter application gives rise to zero‐flux boundary conditions. Numerical examples illustrate the behavior and accuracy of entropy stable schemes for these applications.     

Higher-order compact finite difference method for systems of reaction–diffusion equations

This paper is concerned with a compact finite difference method for solving systems of two-dimensional reaction–diffusion equations. This method has the accuracy of fourth-order in both space and time. The existence and uniqueness of the finite difference solution are investigated by the method of upper and lower solutions, without any monotone requirement on the nonlinear term. Three monotone iterative algorithms are provided for solving the resulting discrete system efficiently, and the sequences of iterations converge monotonically to a unique solution of the system. A theoretical comparison result for the various monotone sequences is given. The convergence of the finite difference solution to the continuous solution is proved, and Richardson extrapolation is used to achieve fourth-order accuracy in time. An application is given to an enzyme–substrate reaction–diffusion problem, and some numerical results are presented to demonstrate the high efficiency and advantages of this new approach.     

Sufficient conditions for uniform convergence on layer-adapted meshes for one-dimensional reaction–diffusion problems

We study convergence properties of a finite element method with lumping for the solution of linear one-dimensional reaction–diffusion problems on arbitrary meshes. We derive conditions that are sufficient for convergence in the L_∞ norm, uniformly in the diffusion parameter, of the method. These conditions are easy to check and enable one to immediately deduce the rate of convergence. The key ingredients of our analysis are sharp estimates for the discrete Green function associated with the discretization. AMS subject classification 65L10, 65L12, 65L15