Spreading speed and profile for nonlinear Stefan problems in high space dimensions

Title
Spreading speed and profile for nonlinear Stefan problems in high space dimensions
Publication Date
2015
Author(s)
Du, Yihong
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1235-0636
Email: ydu@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:ydu
Matsuzawa, Hiroshi
Zhou, Maolin
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Elsevier Masson
Place of publication
France
DOI
10.1016/j.matpur.2014.07.008
UNE publication id
une:18598
Abstract
We consider nonlinear diffusion problems of the form ut = Δu + f(u) with Stefan type free boundary conditions, where the nonlinear term f(u) is of monostable, bistable or combustion type. Such problems are used as an alternative model (to the corresponding Cauchy problem) to describe the spreading of a biological or chemical species, where the free boundary represents the expanding front. We are interested in its long-time spreading behavior which, by recent results of Du, Matano and Wang [10], is largely determined by radially symmetric solutions. Therefore we will examine the radially symmetric case, where the equation is satisfied in |x| < h(t), with |x| = h(t) the free boundary. We assume that spreading happens, namely limt→∞h(t) = ∞, limt→∞u(t,|x|) =1. For the case of one space dimension (N = 1), Du and Lou [8]proved that limt→∞h(t)t=c∗ for some c∗ > 0. Subsequently, sharper estimate of the spreading speed was obtained by the authors of the current paper in [11], in the form that limt→∞[h(t) − c∗t] =ˆ Ĥ∈R¹. In this paper, we consider the case N ≥ 2 and show that a logarithmic shifting occurs, namely there exists c͙ > 0 independent of N such that limt→∞[h(t) − c∗t + (N − 1)c͙logt] =ˆ ĥ∈R¹. At the same time, we also obtain a rather clear description of the spreading profile of u(t,r). These results reveal striking differences from the spreading behavior modeled by the corresponding Cauchy problem.
Link
Citation
Journal de Mathematiques Pures et Appliquees, 103(3), p. 741-787
ISSN
1776-3371
0021-7824
Start page
741
End page
787

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