The emergence of travelling waves for reaction-diffusion equations under a co-moving change of coordinates

Series
CDSNS Colloquium
Time
Monday, November 30, 2009 - 11:00am for 1 hour (actually 50 minutes)
Location
Skiles 269
Speaker
Maria Lopez – Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas Madrid, Spain
Organizer
Yingfei Yi
We introduce a change of coordinates allowing to capture in a fixed reference frame the profile of travelling wave solutions for nonlinear parabolic equations. For nonlinearities of bistable type the asymptotic travelling wave profile becomes an equilibrium state for the augmented reaction-diffusion equation. In the new equation, the profile of the asymptotic travelling front and its propagation speed emerge simultaneously as time evolves. Several numerical experiments illustrate the effciency of the method.