Traveling Waves in a Convolution Model for Phase Transitions

The existence, uniqueness, stability and regularity properties of traveling-wave solutions of a bistable nonlinear integrodifferential equation are established, as well as their global asymptotic stability in the case of zero-velocity continuous waves. This equation is a direct analog of the more familiar bistable nonlinear diffusion equation, and shares many of its properties. It governs gradient flows for free-energy functionals with general nonlocal interaction integrals penalizing spatial nonuniformity. (Accepted October 16, 1995)