Spatially discrete reaction-diffusion equations with discontinuous hysteresis

TL;DR

This paper investigates the ill-posedness of reaction-diffusion equations with hysteretic nonlinearities by discretizing space, revealing a new spatio-temporal pattern called rattling, and proposing ways to redefine hysteresis for well-posedness.

Contribution

It introduces a lattice dynamical system with hysteresis, analyzes the rattling pattern, and provides explicit results on propagation velocity, advancing understanding of hysteresis in reaction-diffusion models.

Findings

Discretization reveals rattling pattern distinct from classical waves

Propagation velocity scales as a t^{-1/2} with explicit rate

Redefining hysteresis can ensure well-posedness of the continuous problem

Abstract

We address the question: Why may reaction-diffusion equations with hysteretic nonlinearities become ill-posed and how to amend this? To do so, we discretize the spatial variable and obtain a lattice dynamical system with a hysteretic nonlinearity. We analyze a new mechanism that leads to appearance of a spatio-temporal pattern called {\it rattling}: the solution exhibits a propagation phenomenon different from the classical traveling wave, while the hysteretic nonlinearity, loosely speaking, takes a different value at every second spatial point, independently of the grid size. Such a dynamics indicates how one should redefine hysteresis to make the continuous problem well-posed and how the solution will then behave. In the present paper, we develop main tools for the analysis of the spatially discrete model and apply them to a prototype case. In particular, we prove that the propagation velocity is of order $a t^{-1/2}$ as $t\to\infty$ and explicitly find the rate $a$.