English

KPP fronts in shear flows with cut-off reaction rates

Analysis of PDEs 2024-06-25 v1 Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We consider the effect of a shear flow which has, without loss of generality, a zero mean flow rate, on a Kolmogorov--Petrovskii--Piscounov (KPP) type model in the presence of a discontinuous cut-off at concentration u=ucu = u_c. Its structure and speed of propagation depends on AA (the strength of the flow relative to the propagation speed in the absence of advection) and BB (the square of the front thickness relative to the channel width). We use matched asymptotic expansions to approximate the propagation speed in the three natural cases AA\to \infty, A0A\to 0 and A=O(1)A=O(1), with particular associated orderings on BB, whilst uc(0,1)u_c\in(0,1) remains fixed. In all the cases that we consider, the shear flow enhances the speed of propagation in a manner that is similar to the case without cut-off (uc=0u_c=0). We illustrate the theory by evaluating expressions (either directly or through numerical integration) for the particular cases of the plane Couette and Poiseuille flows.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.16617,
  title  = {KPP fronts in shear flows with cut-off reaction rates},
  author = {D. J. Needham and A. Tzella},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.16617},
  year   = {2024}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T17:17:16.155Z