Inside dynamics of pulled and pushed fronts

We investigate the inside structure of one-dimensional reaction–diffusion traveling fronts. The reaction terms are of the monostable, bistable or ignition types. Assuming that the fronts are made of several components with identical diffusion and growth rates, we analyze the spreading properties of each component. In the monostable case, the fronts are classified as pulled or pushed ones, depending on the propagation speed. We prove that any localized component of a pulled front converges locally to 0 at large times in the moving frame of the front, while any component of a pushed front converges to a well determined positive proportion of the front in the moving frame. These results give a new and more complete interpretation of the pulled/pushed terminology which extends the previous definitions to the case of general transition waves. In particular, in the bistable and ignition cases, the fronts are proved to be pushed as they share the same inside structure as the pushed monostable critical fronts. Uniform convergence results and precise estimates of the left and right spreading speeds of the components of pulled and pushed fronts are also established.     

Qualitative properties of pulsating fronts for reaction–advection–diffusion equations in periodic excitable media

In this paper, we study the pulsating fronts of reaction–advection-diffusion equations with two types of nonlinear term in periodic excitable media. Firstly, for the case with combustion nonlinearity, the unique front is proved to decay exponentially when it approaches the unstable limiting state. Secondly, for the degenerate monostable type nonlinearity, it is shown that the front with critical speed is unique, monotone and decays exponentially at negative end, while the fronts of noncritical speeds decay to zero non-exponentially.     

Front-like entire solutions for equations with convection

We construct families of front-like entire solutions for problems with convection, both for bistable and monostable reaction–diffusion–convection equations, and, via vanishing-viscosity arguments, for bistable and monostable balance laws. The unified approach employed is inspired by ideas of Chen and Guo and based on a robust method using front-dependent sub and supersolutions. Unlike convectionless problems, the equations studied here lack symmetry between increasing and decreasing travelling waves, which affects the choice of sub and supersolutions used. Our entire solutions include both those that behave like two fronts coming together and annihilating as time increases, and, for bistable equations, those that behave like two fronts merging to propagate like a single front. We also characterise the long-time behaviour of each family of entire solutions, which in the case of solutions constructed from a monostable front merging with a bistable front answers a question that was open even for reaction–diffusion equations without convection.     

Front propagation in periodic excitable media

This paper is devoted to the study of pulsating travelling fronts for reaction‐diffusion‐advection equations in a general class of periodic domains with underlying periodic diffusion and velocity fields. Such fronts move in some arbitrarily given direction with an unknown effective speed. The notion of pulsating travelling fronts generalizes that of travelling fronts for planar or shear flows. Various existence, uniqueness and monotonicity results are proved for two classes of reaction terms. Firstly, for a combustion‐type nonlinearity, it is proved that the pulsating travelling front exists and that its speed is unique. Moreover, the front is increasing with respect to the time variable and unique up to translation in time. We also consider one class of monostable nonlinearity which arises either in combustion or biological models. Then, the set of possible speeds is a semi‐infinite interval, closed and bounded from below. For each possible speed, there exists a pulsating travelling front which is increasing in time. This result extends the classical Kolmogorov‐Petrovsky‐Piskunov case. Our study covers in particular the case of flows in all of space with periodic advections such as periodic shear flows or a periodic array of vortical cells. These results are also obtained for cylinders with oscillating boundaries or domains with a periodic array of holes. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

LOCAL STABILITY OF TRAVELLING FRONTS FOR A DAMPED WAVE EQUATION

The paper is concerned with the long-time behaviour of the travelling fronts of the damped wave equation αutt+ut=uxx V’(u) on R.The long-time asymptotics of the solutions of this equation are quite similar to those of the corresponding reaction-diffusion equation ut=uxxV’(u).Whereas a lot is known about the local stability of travelling fronts in parabolic systems,for the hyperbolic equations it is only briefly discussed when the potential V is of bistable type.However,for the combustion or monostable type of V,the problem is much more complicated.In this paper,a local stability result for travelling fronts of this equation with combustion type of nonlinearity is established.And then,the result is extended to the damped wave equation with a case of monostable pushed front.     

Entire solutions in periodic lattice dynamical systems

This paper deals with entire solutions of periodic lattice dynamical systems. Unlike homogeneous problems, the periodic equation studied here lacks symmetry between increasing and decreasing pulsating traveling fronts, which affects the construction of entire solutions. In the bistable case, the existence, uniqueness and Liapunov stability of entire solutions are proved by constructing different sub- and supersolutions. In the monostable case, the existence and asymptotic behavior of spatially periodic solutions connecting two steady states are first established. Some new types of entire solutions are then constructed by combining leftward and rightward pulsating traveling fronts with different speeds and a spatially periodic solution. Various qualitative features of the entire solutions are also investigated.     

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.     

Multidimensional stability of traveling fronts in monostable reaction-difusion equations with complex perturbations

This paper studies the multidimensional stability of traveling fronts in monostable reaction-difusion equations,including Ginzburg-Landau equations and Fisher-KPP equations.Eckmann and Wayne(1994)showed a one-dimensional stability result of traveling fronts with speeds c c(the critical speed)under complex perturbations.In the present work,we prove that these traveling fronts are also asymptotically stable subject to complex perturbations in multiple space dimensions(n=2,3),employing weighted energy methods.     

On the Geometric Diversity of Wavefronts for the Scalar Kolmogorov Ecological Equation

We answer three fundamental questions concerning monostable traveling fronts for the scalar Kolmogorov ecological equation with diffusion and spatiotemporal interaction: These are the questions about their existence, uniqueness and geometric shape. In the particular case of the food-limited model, we give a rigorous proof of the existence of a peculiar, yet substantive and nonlinearly determined class of non-monotone and non-oscillating wavefronts.

     

Multidimensional stability of traveling fronts in monostable reaction-diffusion equations with complex perturbations

This paper studies the multidimensional stability of traveling fronts in monostable reaction-difusion equations,including Ginzburg-Landau equations and Fisher-KPP equations.Eckmann and Wayne(1994)showed a one-dimensional stability result of traveling fronts with speeds c c(the critical speed)under complex perturbations.In the present work,we prove that these traveling fronts are also asymptotically stable subject to complex perturbations in multiple space dimensions(n=2,3),employing weighted energy methods.     

Existence and qualitative features of entire solutions for delayed reaction diffusion system: the monostable case

The paper is concerned with the existence and qualitative features of entire solutions for delayed reaction diffusion monostable systems. Here the entire solutions mean solutions defined on the $ (x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^{N+1} $. We first establish the comparison principles, construct appropriate upper and lower solutions and some upper estimates for the systems with quasimonotone nonlinearities. Then, some new types of entire solutions are constructed by mixing any finite number of traveling wave fronts with different speeds $ c\geq c_* $ and propagation directions and a spatially independent solution, where $c_*>0$ is the critical wave speed. Furthermore, various qualitative properties of entire solutions are investigated. In particularly, the relationship between the entire solution, the traveling wave fronts and a spatially independent solution are considered, respectively. At last, for the nonquasimonotone nonlinearity case, some new types of entire solutions are also investigated by introducing two auxiliary quasimonotone controlled systems and establishing some comparison theorems for Cauchy problems of the three systems.     

Existence of traveling wave fronts in delayed reaction-diffusion systems via the monotone iteration method

The monotone iteration method is employed to establish the existence of traveling wave fronts in delayed reaction-diffusion systems with monostable nonlinearities.

     

Monotonicity,uniqueness, and stability of traveling waves in a nonlocal reaction‐diffusion system with delay

The purpose of this paper is to study the traveling wave solutions of a nonlocal reaction‐diffusion system with delay arising from the spread of an epidemic by oral‐faecal transmission. Under monostable and quasimonotone it is well known that the system has a minimal wave speed c* of traveling wave fronts. In this paper, we first prove the monotonicity and uniqueness of traveling waves with speed c ?c _?. Then we show that the traveling wave fronts with speed c >c _? are exponentially asymptotically stable.     

Stability in Lagrange sense for Cohen–Grossberg neural networks with time-varying delays and finite distributed delays

In this paper, we study the global exponential stability in Lagrange sense for a class of Cohen–Grossberg neural networks with time-varying delays and finite distributed delays. Based on the Lyapunov stability theory, several global exponential attractive sets in which all trajectories converge are obtained. We analyze three different types of activation functions which include both bounded and unbounded activation functions. These results can also be applied to analyze monostable as well as multistable and more extensive neural networks due to making no assumptions on the number of equilibria. Meanwhile, the results obtained in this paper are more general and challenging than that of the existing references. Finally, one example is given and analyzed to verify our results.     

Persistence of wavefronts in delayed nonlocal reaction-diffusion equations

We develop a perturbation argument based on existing results on asymptotic autonomous systems and the Fredholm alternative theory that yields the persistence of traveling wavefronts for reaction-diffusion equations with nonlocal and delayed nonlinearities, when the time lag is relatively small. This persistence result holds when the nonlinearity of the corresponding ordinary reaction-diffusion system is either monostable or bistable. We then illustrate this general result using five different models from population biology, epidemiology and bio-reactors.     

On the existence of non-monotone non-oscillating wavefronts

We present a monostable delayed reaction–diffusion equation with the unimodal birth function which admits only non-monotone wavefronts. Moreover, these fronts are either eventually monotone (in particular, such is the minimal wave) or slowly oscillating. Hence, for the Mackey–Glass type diffusive equations, we answer affirmatively the question about the existence of non-monotone non-oscillating wavefronts. As it was recently established by Hasik et al. and Ducrot et al., the same question has a negative answer for the KPP-Fisher equation with a single delay.     

Separation dichotomy and wavefronts for a nonlinear convolution equation

This paper is concerned with a scalar nonlinear convolution equation, which appears naturally in the theory of traveling waves for monostable evolution models. First, we prove that, at each end of the real line, every bounded positive solution of the convolution equation should either be separated from zero or be exponentially converging to zero. This dichotomy principle is then used to establish a general theorem guaranteeing the uniform persistence and existence of semi-wavefront solutions to the convolution equation. Finally, we apply our theoretical results to several well-studied classes of evolution equations with asymmetric non-local and non-monotone response. We show that, contrary to the symmetric case, these equations can possess simultaneously stationary, expansion and extinction waves.     

Traveling wave front for a two-component lattice dynamical system arising in competition models

We study traveling front solutions for a two-component system on a one-dimensional lattice. This system arises in the study of the competition between two species with diffusion (or migration), if we divide the habitat into discrete regions or niches. We consider the case when the nonlinear source terms are of Lotka–Volterra type and of monostable case. We first show that there is a positive constant (the minimal wave speed) such that a traveling front exists if and only if its speed is above this minimal wave speed. Then we show that any wave profile is strictly monotone. Moreover, under some conditions, we show that the wave profile is unique (up to translations) for a given wave speed. Finally, we characterize the minimal wave speed by the parameters in the system.     

Propagation failure of fronts in discrete inhomogeneous media with a sawtooth nonlinearity

Exact, steady-state, single-front solutions are constructed for a spatially discrete bistable equation with a piecewise linear reaction term, known as a sawtooth nonlinearity. These solutions are obtained by solving second-order difference equations with variable coefficients, which are linear under certain assumptions on the expected solutions. An algorithmic procedure for constructing solutions in general, for both homogeneous and inhomogeneous diffusion, is obtained using a combination of Jacobi-Operator theory and the Sherman–Morrison formula. The existence of solutions for the difference equation, implies propagation failure of fronts for the corresponding differential-difference equation. The interval of propagation failure, which is the range of values of the detuning parameter that render stationary fronts, is studied in detail for the case of a single defect in the medium of propagation. Explicit formulae reveal precise relationships between parameter values that cause traveling fronts to fail to propagate when the interface reaches the inhomogeneities in the medium. These explicit formulae are also compared to numerical computations using the proposed algorithmic approach, which provides a check of its computational usefulness and illustrates its capabilities for problems with more complicated choices of parameter values.     

Combined effects of correlated bounded noises and weak periodic signal input in the modified FitzHugh–Nagumo neural model

We study the dynamics of neurons via a bistable modified stochastic FitzHugh–Nagumo model having two stable fixed points separated by one unstable fixed point. Due to the ability of a neuron to detect and enhance weak information transmission, we show numerically that starting from the resting potential, we get firing activities (spiking) when operating slightly beyond the supercritical Hopf bifurcation. For real biological systems which are sometimes embedded in the complex environment, we observe that a gradual increase or decrease noise intensities did not result in a gradual change of the membrane potential distribution thanks to noise induced transition phenomena. We shown analytically that for zero correlation between two sine Wiener noises, additive noise has no effect on the transition between monostable and bistable phase on the neural model. We adapted a general expression of the signal-to-noise ratio for a general two-state theory extended in the asymmetric case and non-Gaussian noises in our model to study the influence of noise strength in stochastic resonance. Our investigation revealed that in the evolution of excitable system, neurons may use noises to their advantage by enhancing their sensitivity near a preferred phase to detect external stimuli or affect the efficiency and rate of information processing.