Pulsating semi-waves in periodic media and spreading speed determined by a free boundary model》.pdf

Available online at ScienceDirect Ann. I. H. Poincaré – AN 32 (2015) 279–305 /locate/anihpc Pulsating semi-waves in periodic media and spreading speed determined by a free boundary model ✩ Yihong Du a,∗ , Xing Liang b a School of Science and Technology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia b Wu Wen-Tsun Key Laboratory of Mathematics and School of Mathematical Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, PR China Received 5 January 2013; received in revised form 1 October 2013; accepted 25 November 2013 Available online 16 December 2013 Abstract We consider a radially symmetric free boundary problem with logistic nonlinear term. The spatial environment is assumed to be asymptotically periodic at infinity in the radial direction. For such a free boundary problem, it is known from [7] that a spreading-vanishing dichotomy holds. However, when spreading occurs, only upper and lower bounds are obtained in [7] for the asymptotic spreading speed. In this paper, we investigate one-dimensional pulsating semi-waves in spatially periodic media. We prove existence, uniqueness of such pulsating semi-waves, and show that the asymptotic spreading speed of the free boundary problem coincides with the speed of the corresponding pulsating semi-wave. © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. MSC: 35K20; 35R35; 35J60; 92B05 Keywords: Diffusive logistic equation; Free boundary; Periodic environment; Pulsating semi-wave; Spreadi