Spreading speeds of KPP-type lattice systems in heterogeneous media

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate spreading properties of the solutions of the Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov-type, (to be simple,KPP-type) lattice system \begin{equation}\label{firstequation}\overset{.}u_{i}(t) =d^{\prime}_{i}(u_{i+1}(t)-u_{i}(t))+d_{i}(u_{i-1}(t)-u_{i}(t))+f(i,u_{i}).\end{equation} we develop some new discrete Harnack-type estimates and homogenization techniques for this lattice system to construct two speeds $\overline\omega \leq \underline \omega$ such that $\displaystyle{\lim_{t\rightarrow+\infty}}\sup \limits_{i\geq\omega t}|u_i(t)|=0$ for any $\omega>\overline{\omega}$, and $\displaystyle{\lim_{t\rightarrow+\infty}}\sup \limits_{0\leq i\leq\omega t}|u_i(t)-1|=0$ for any $\omega<\underline{\omega}$. These speeds are characterized by two generalized principal eigenvalues of the linearized systems. In particular, we derive the exact spreading speed when the coefficients are random stationary ergodic or almost periodic (where $\underline\omega = \overline\omega$). Finally, in the case where $f_{s}^{\prime}(i,0)$ is almost periodic in $i$ and the diffusion rate $d_i'=d_i$ is independent of $i$, we show that the spreading speeds in the positive and negative directions are identical even if $ f(i,u_{i})$ is not invariant with respect to the reflection.