Spreading speeds for one-dimensional monostable reaction-diffusion equations

Abstract

We establish in this article spreading properties for the solutions of equations of the type $\partial$ t u -- a(x)$\partial$ xx u -- q(x)$\partial$ x u = f (x, u), where a, q, f are only assumed to be uniformly continuous and bounded in x, the nonlinearity f is of monostable KPP type between two steady states 0 and 1 and the initial datum is compactly sup-ported. Using homogenization techniques, we construct two speeds w $\le$ w such that lim t$\rightarrow$+$\infty$ sup 0$\le$x$\le$wt |u(t, x)--1| = 0 for all w $\in$ (0, w) and lim t$\rightarrow$+$\infty$ sup x$\ge$wt |u(t, x)| = 0 for all w \textgreater{} w. These speeds are characterized in terms of two new notions of generalized principal eigenvalues for linear elliptic operators in unbounded domains. In particu-lar, we derive the exact spreading speed when the coefficients are random stationary ergodic, almost periodic or asymptotically almost periodic (where w = w).