Jing An

We consider the long time behavior of the solutions to the Burgers-FKPP equation with advection of a strength \beta\in\mathbb{R} . This equation exhibits a transition from pulled to pushed front behavior at \beta_{c}=2 . We prove convergence of the solutions to a traveling wave in a reference frame centered at a position m_{\beta}(t) and study the asymptotics of the front location m_{\beta}(t) . When \beta < 2 , it has the same form as for the standard Fisher-KPP equation established by Bramson: m_{\beta}(t) = 2t - (3/2)\log t + x_{\infty} + o(1) as t\to\infty . This form is typical of pulled fronts. When \beta > 2 , the front is located at the position m_{\beta}(t)=c_{*}(\beta)t+x_{\infty}+o(1) with c_{*}(\beta)=\beta/2+2/\beta , which is the typical form of pushed fronts. However, at the critical value \beta_{c} = 2 , the expansion changes to m_{\beta}(t) = 2t - (1/2)\log t + x_{\infty} + o(1) , reflecting the “pushmi-pullyu” nature of the front. The arguments for \beta2 relies on standard pushed front techniques. The proof in the case \beta=\beta_{c} is much more intricate and involves arguments not usually encountered in the study of the Bramson correction. It relies on a somewhat hidden viscous conservation law structure of the Burgers-FKPP equation at \beta_{c}=2 and utilizes a dissipation inequality, which comes from a relative entropy type computation, together with a weighted Nash inequality involving dynamically changing weights.

We uncover a seemingly previously unnoticed algebraic structure of a large class of reaction-diffusion equations and use it, in particular, to study the long time behavior of the solutions and their convergence to traveling waves in the pulled and pushed regimes, as well as at the pushmi-pullyu boundary. One such new object introduced in this paper is the shape defect function, which, indirectly, measures the difference between the profiles of the solution and the traveling wave. While one can recast the classical notion of `steepness' in terms of the positivity of the shape defect function, its positivity can, surprisingly, be used in numerous quantitative ways. In particular, the positivity is used in a new weighted Hopf-Cole transform and in a relative entropy approach that play a key role in the stability arguments. The shape defect function also gives a new connection between reaction-diffusion equations and reaction conservation laws at the pulled-pushed transition. Other simple but seemingly new algebraic constructions in the present paper supply various unexpected inequalities sprinkled throughout the paper. Of note is a new variational formulation that applies equally to pulled and pushed fronts, opening the door to an as-yet-elusive variational analysis in the pulled case.