Propagation Phenomena in a Bistable Reaction Diffusion System.

Abstract

Consideration is given to a system of reaction diffusion equations which have qualitative significance for several applications including nerve conduction and distributed chemical/biochemical systems. These equations are of the FitzHugh-Nagumo type and contain three parameters. For certain ranges of the parameters the system exhibits two stable singular points. A singular perturbation construction is given to illustrate that there may exist both pulse type and transition type traveling waves. A complete, rigorous, description of which of these waves exist for a given set of parameters and how the velocities of the waves vary with the parameters is given for the case when the system has a piecewise linear nonlinearity. Numerical results of solutions to these equations are also presented. These calculations illustrate how waves are generated from initial data, how they interact during collisions, and how they are influenced by local disturbances and boundary conditions.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1981
Accession Number
ADA100568

Entities

People

  • David Terman
  • John Rinzel

Organizations

  • University of Wisconsin–Madison

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical
  • C4I

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Boundaries
  • Boundary Value Problems
  • Collisions
  • Construction
  • Differential Equations
  • Equations
  • Leading Edges
  • Mathematics
  • Models
  • Perturbations
  • Reflection
  • Steady State
  • Trailing Edges
  • Transitions
  • Transmission Lines
  • Traveling Waves
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Mathematics

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Control Systems Engineering.
  • Theoretical Analysis.