Convergence and sharp thresholds for propagation in nonlinear diffusion problems

  • Yihong Du

    School of Science and Technology, Armidale, Australia
  • Hiroshi Matano

    University of Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

We study the Cauchy problem

where is a locally Lipschitz continuous function satisfying . We show that any nonnegative bounded solution with compactly supported initial data converges to a stationary solution as . Moreover, the limit is either a constant or a symmetrically decreasing stationary solution. We also consider the special case where is a bistable nonlinearity and the case where is a combustion type nonlinearity. Examining the behavior of a parameter-dependent solution , we show the existence of a sharp threshold between extinction (i.e., convergence to ) and propagation (i.e., convergence to ). The result holds even if has a jumping discontinuity at .

Cite this article

Yihong Du, Hiroshi Matano, Convergence and sharp thresholds for propagation in nonlinear diffusion problems. J. Eur. Math. Soc. 12 (2010), no. 2, pp. 279–312

DOI 10.4171/JEMS/198