On the Speed of Spread for Fractional Reaction-Diffusion Equations

Abstract

The fractional reaction diffusion equation u_t + Au = g(u) is discussed, where A is a fractional differential operator on the real line with order \alpha between 0 and 2, the C^1 function g vanishes at 0 and 1, and either g is non-negative on (0,1) or g < 0 near 0. In the case of non-negative g, it is shown that solutions with initial support on the positive half axis spread into the left half axis with unbounded speed if g satisfies some weak growth condition near 0 in the case \alpha > 1, or if g is merely positive on a sufficiently large interval near 1 in the case \alpha < 1. On the other hand, it shown that solutions spread with finite speed if g'(0) < 0. The proofs use comparison arguments and a new family of traveling wave solutions for this class of problems.