English

Propagation acceleration in reaction diffusion equations with anomalous diffusions

Analysis of PDEs 2020-03-13 v1 Dynamical Systems

Abstract

In this paper, we are interested in the properties of solution of the nonlocal equation {ut+(Δ)su=f(u),t>0, xRu(0,x)=u0(x),xR\begin{cases}u_t+(-\Delta)^su=f(u),\quad t>0, \ x\in\mathbb{R}\\ u(0,x)=u_0(x),\quad x\in\mathbb{R}\end{cases} where 0u0<10\le u_0<1 is a Heaviside type function, Δs\Delta^s stands for the fractional Laplacian with s(0,1)s\in (0,1), and fC([0,1],R+)f\in C([0,1],\mathbb{R}^+) is a non negative nonlinearity such that f(0)=f(1)=0f(0)=f(1)=0 and f(1)<0f'(1)<0. In this context, it is known that the solution u(t,s)u(t,s) converges locally uniformly to 1 and our aim here is to understand how fast this invasion process occur. When ff is a Fisher-KPP type nonlinearity and s(0,1)s \in (0,1), it is known that the level set of the solution u(t,x)u(t,x) moves at an exponential speed whereas when ff is of ignition type and s(12,1)s\in \left(\frac{1}{2},1\right) then the level set of the solution moves at a constant speed. In this article, for general monostable nonlinearities ff and any s(0,1)s\in (0,1) we derive generic estimates on the position of the level sets of the solution u(t,x)u(t,x) which then enable us to describe more precisely the behaviour of this invasion process. In particular, we obtain a algebraic generic upper bound on the "speed" of level set highlighting the delicate interplay of ss and ff in the existence of an exponential acceleration process. When s(0,12]s\in\left (0,\frac{1}{2}\right] and ff is of ignition type, we also complete the known description of the behaviour of uu and give a precise asymptotic of the speed of the level set in this context. Notably, we prove that the level sets accelerate when s(0,12)s\in\left(0,\frac{1}{2}\right) and that in the critical case s=12s=\frac{1}{2} although no travelling front can exist, the level sets still move asymptotically at a constant speed. These new results are in sharp contrast with the bistable situation where no such acceleration may occur, highlighting therefore the qualitative difference between the two type of nonlinearities.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.05446,
  title  = {Propagation acceleration in reaction diffusion equations with anomalous diffusions},
  author = {Jérôme Coville and Changfeng Gui and Mingfeng Zhao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.05446},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:11:58.130Z