Dynamics for a diffusive epidemic model with a free boundary: spreading speed

Abstract: We study the spreading speed of a diffusive epidemic model proposed by Li et al. \cite{LL}, where the Stefan boundary condition is imposed at the right boundary, and the left boundary is subject to the homogeneous Dirichlet and Neumann condition, respectively. A spreading-vanishing dichotomy and some sharp criteria were obtained in \cite{LL}. In this paper, when spreading happens, we not only obtain the exact spreading speed of the spreading front described by the right boundary, but derive some sharp estimates on the asymptotical behavior of solution component $(u,v)$. Our arguments depend crucially on some detailed understandings for a corresponding semi-wave problem and a steady state problem.