No Arabic abstract
Localized spot patterns, where one or more solution components concentrates at certain points in the domain, are a common class of localized pattern for reaction-diffusion systems, and they arise in a wide range of modeling scenarios. In an arbitrary bounded 3-D domain, the existence, linear stability, and slow dynamics of localized multi-spot patterns is analyzed for the well-known singularly perturbed Gierer-Meinhardt (GM) activator-inhibitor system in the limit of a small activator diffusivity $varepsilon^2ll 1$. Our main focus is to classify the different types of multi-spot patterns, and predict their linear stability properties, for different asymptotic ranges of the inhibitor diffusivity $D$. For the range $D={mathcal O}(varepsilon^{-1})gg 1$, although both symmetric and asymmetric quasi-equilibrium spot patterns can be constructed, the asymmetric patterns are shown to be always unstable. On this range of $D$, it is shown that symmetric spot patterns can undergo either competition instabilities or a Hopf bifurcation, leading to spot annihilation or temporal spot amplitude oscillations, respectively. For $D={mathcal O}(1)$, only symmetric spot quasi-equilibria exist and they are linearly stable on ${mathcal O}(1)$ time intervals. On this range, it is shown that the spot locations evolve slowly on an ${mathcal O}(varepsilon^{-3})$ time scale towards their equilibrium locations according to an ODE gradient flow, which is determined by a discrete energy involving the reduced-wave Greens function. The central role of the far-field behavior of a certain core problem, which characterizes the profile of a localized spot, for the construction of quasi-equilibria in the $D={mathcal O}(1)$ and $D={mathcal O}(varepsilon^{-1})$ regimes, and in establishing some of their linear stability properties, is emphasized.
We analyze a coupled bulk-membrane PDE model in which a scalar linear 2-D bulk diffusion process is coupled through a linear Robin boundary condition to a two-component 1-D reaction-diffusion (RD) system with Gierer-Meinhardt (nonlinear) reaction kinetics defined on the domain boundary. For this coupled model, in the singularly perturbed limit of a long-range inhibition and short-range activation for the membrane-bound species, asymptotic methods are used to analyze the existence of localized steady-state multi-spike membrane-bound patterns, and to derive a nonlocal eigenvalue problem (NLEP) characterizing $mathcal{O}(1)$ time-scale instabilities of these patterns. A central, and novel, feature of this NLEP is that it involves a membrane Greens function that is coupled nonlocally to a bulk Greens function. When the domain is a disk, or in the well-mixed shadow-system limit corresponding to an infinite bulk diffusivity, this Greens function problem is analytically tractable, and as a result we will use a hybrid analytical-numerical approach to determine unstable spectra of this NLEP. This analysis characterizes how the 2-D bulk diffusion process and the bulk-membrane coupling modifies the well-known linear stability properties of steady-state spike patterns for the 1-D Gierer-Meinhardt model in the absence of coupling. In particular, phase diagrams in parameter space for our coupled model characterizing either oscillatory instabilities due to Hopf bifurcations, or competition instabilities due to zero-eigenvalue crossings are constructed. Finally, linear stability predictions from the NLEP analysis are confirmed with full numerical finite-element simulations of the coupled PDE system.
We consider a bulk-membrane-coupled partial differential equation in which a single diffusion equation posed within the unit ball is coupled to a two-component reaction diffusion equation posed on the bounding unit sphere through a linear Robin boundary condition. Specifically, within the bulk we consider a process of linear diffusion with point-source generation for a bulk-bound activator. On the bounding surface we consider the classical two-component Brusselator model where the feed term is replaced by the restriction of the bulk-bound activator to the membrane. By considering the singularly perturbed limit of a small diffusivity ratio between the membrane-bound activator and inhibitor species, we use formal asymptotic expansions to construct strongly localized quasi-equilibrium spot solutions and study their linear stability. Our analysis reveals that bulk-membrane-coupling can restrict the existence of localized spot solutions through a recirculation mechanism. In addition we derive stability thresholds that illustrate the effect of coupling on both competition and splitting instabilities. Finally, we use higher-order matched asymptotic expansions to derive a system of differential algebraic equations that describe the slow motion of spots. The potential for new coupling induced dynamical behaviour is illustrated by considering examples of one-, two-, and three-spot solutions.
The structure, linear stability, and dynamics of localized solutions to singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equations has been the focus of numerous rigorous, asymptotic, and numerical studies in the last few decades. However, with a few exceptions, these studies have often assumed homogeneous boundary conditions. Motivated by the recent focus on the analysis of bulk-surface coupled problems we consider the effect of inhomogeneous Neumann boundary conditions for the activator in the singularly perturbed one-dimensional Gierer-Meinhardt reaction-diffusion system. We show that these boundary conditions necessitate the formation of spikes that concentrate in a boundary layer near the domain boundaries. Using the method of matched asymptotic expansions we construct boundary layer spikes and derive a new class of shifted Nonlocal Eigenvalue Problems for which we rigorously prove partial stability results. Moreover by using a combination of asymptotic, rigorous, and numerical methods we investigate the structure and linear stability of selected one- and two-spike patterns. In particular we find that inhomogeneous Neumann boundary conditions increase both the range of parameter values over which asymmetric two-spike patterns exist and are stable.
A hybrid asymptotic-numerical theory is developed to analyze the effect of different types of localized heterogeneities on the existence, linear stability, and slow dynamics of localized spot patterns for the two-component Schnakenberg reaction-diffusion model in a 2-D domain. Two distinct types of localized heterogeneities are considered: a strong localized perturbation of a spatially uniform feed rate and the effect of removing a small hole in the domain, through which the chemical species can leak out. Our hybrid theory reveals a wide range of novel phenomena such as, saddle-node bifurcations for quasi-equilibrium spot patterns that otherwise would not occur for a homogeneous medium, a new type of spot solution pinned at the concentration point of the feed rate, spot self-replication behavior leading to the creation of more than two new spots, and the existence of a creation-annihilation attractor with at most three spots. Depending on the type of localized heterogeneity introduced, localized spots are either repelled or attracted towards the localized defect on asymptotically long time scales. Results for slow spot dynamics and detailed predictions of various instabilities of quasi-equilibrium spot patterns, all based on our hybrid asymptotic-numerical theory, are illustrated and confirmed through extensive full PDE numerical simulations.
The existence and stability of localized patterns of criminal activity are studied for the reaction-diffusion model of urban crime that was introduced by Short et. al. [Math. Models. Meth. Appl. Sci., 18, Suppl. (2008), pp. 1249--1267]. Such patterns, characterized by the concentration of criminal activity in localized spatial regions, are referred to as hot-spot patterns and they occur in a parameter regime far from the Turing point associated with the bifurcation of spatially uniform solutions. Singular perturbation techniques are used to construct steady-state hot-spot patterns in one and two-dimensional spatial domains, and new types of nonlocal eigenvalue problems are derived that determine the stability of these hot-spot patterns to ${mathcal O}(1)$ time-scale instabilities. From an analysis of these nonlocal eigenvalue problems, a critical threshold $K_c$ is determined such that a pattern consisting of $K$ hot-spots is unstable to a competition instability if $K>K_c$. This instability, due to a positive real eigenvalue, triggers the collapse of some of the hot-spots in the pattern. Furthermore, in contrast to the well-known stability results for spike patterns of the Gierer-Meinhardt reaction-diffusion model, it is shown for the crime model that there is only a relatively narrow parameter range where oscillatory instabilities in the hot-spot amplitudes occur. Such an instability, due to a Hopf bifurcation, is studied explicitly for a single hot-spot in the shadow system limit, for which the diffusivity of criminals is asymptotically large. Finally, the parameter regime where localized hot-spots occur is compared with the parameter regime, studied in previous works, where Turing instabilities from a spatially uniform steady-state occur.