Convergence to pulsating traveling waves with minimal speed in some KPP heterogeneous problems (1304.0832v1)

Abstract: The notion of traveling wave, which typically refers to some particular spatio-temporal con- nections between two stationary states (typically, entire solutions keeping the same profile's shape through time), is essential in the mathematical analysis of propagation phenomena. They provide insight on the underlying dynamics, and an accurate description of large time behavior of large classes of solutions, as we will see in this paper. For instance, in an homogeneous framework, it is well-known that, given a fast decaying initial datum (for instance, compactly supported), the solution of a KPP type reaction-diffusion equation converges in both speed and shape to the traveling wave with minimal speed. The issue at stake in this paper is the gener- alization of this result to some one-dimensional heterogeneous environments, namely spatially periodic or converging to a spatially periodic medium. This result fairly improves our under- standing of the large-time behavior of solutions, as well as of the role of heterogeneity, which has become a crucial challenge in this field over the past few years.