Refined estimates of the propagation speed in porous medium equation of combustion type

TL;DR

This paper refines the estimates of the propagation speed in a combustion-type porous medium equation, providing a precise characterization of the lower order term in the asymptotic speed.

Contribution

It offers a refined analysis of the asymptotic speed and characterizes the lower order term for a family of combustion type functions.

Findings

Refined the asymptotic speed estimates for transition solutions.

Provided a precise description of the lower order term o(1).

Showed no unified characterization exists for the lower order term in general.

Abstract

We are concerned with the Cauchy problem $u_{t}=(u^{m})_{xx}+f(u)$, where the nonliearity $f(u)$ is of combustion type and the initial data is compactly supported. In \cite{lou2024convergence}, among other things, the authors prove that by considering a multiple of a given initial data, there is a critical value such that the corresponding transition solution spreads at the asymptotic speed $2y_{0}\sqrt{t}[1+o(1)]\ \text{as} \ t\rightarrow\infty$, while the lower order term $o(1)$ remains unknown. In this paper, for a family of functions of combustion type, we refine the estimates of the asymptotic speed of the transition solution and provide a precise characterization of the lower order term $o(1)$. Our result also reveals that there is no unified characterization of the lower order term for general combustion type functions $f$.