Nonlinear metastability for a parabolic system of reaction-diffusion equations

Abstract

We consider a system of reaction-diffusion equations in a bounded interval of the real line, with emphasis on the metastable dynamics, whereby the time-dependent solution approaches its steady state in an asymptotically exponentially long time interval as the viscosity coefficient $\varepsilon>0$ goes to zero. To rigorous describe such behavior, we analyze the dynamics of solutions in a neighborhood of a one-parameter family of approximate steady states, and we derive an ODE for the position of the internal interfaces.