This Research Note aims to provide an insight into recent developments in the theory of pattern formation. In the last decade there has been considerable progress in this field, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Recent mathematical developments concern the study of the nonlinear stability of systems at near-critical conditions by an appropriate system of modulation equations. The complexity of the original problem can be reduced drastically by this approximation. Moreover, it provides unifying point of view for a wide range of problems. New applications of the theory arise in a multitude of scientific areas such as hydrodynamics, reaction-diffusion problems, oceanography, meteorology, combustion, geophysical and biological morphodynamics and semi-conductors.This book is intended to show the interactions between the mathematical theory of nonlinear dynamics and the study of pattern generating phenomena in the natural environment. There is an intimate relationship between new insights in the mathematical aspects of nonlinear pattern formation and the comprehension of such phenomena. Therefore there are two partly overlapping main themes: one in which the emphasis is on generally applicable mathematical theories and techniques and one in which the phenomenology of pattern evolution in various areas is discussed.The book comprises 19 contributions by experts in the field. Although the emphasis changes considerably from paper to paper, in each contribution the same two themes are present; all the authors have aimed to achieve a suitable balance between the mathematical theory and the physical phenomena.
This Research Note aims to provide an insight into recent developments in the theory of pattern formation. In the last decade there has been considerable progress in this field, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Recent mathematical developments concern the study of the nonlinear stability of systems at near-critical conditions by an appropriate system of modulation equations. The complexity of the original problem can be reduced drastically by this approximation. Moreover, it provides unifying point of view for a wide range of problems. New applications of the theory arise in a multitude of scientific areas such as hydrodynamics, reaction-diffusion problems, oceanography, meteorology, combustion, geophysical and biological morphodynamics and semi-conductors.This book is intended to show the interactions between the mathematical theory of nonlinear dynamics and the study of pattern generating phenomena in the natural environment. There is an intimate relationship between new insights in the mathematical aspects of nonlinear pattern formation and the comprehension of such phenomena. Therefore there are two partly overlapping main themes: one in which the emphasis is on generally applicable mathematical theories and techniques and one in which the phenomenology of pattern evolution in various areas is discussed.The book comprises 19 contributions by experts in the field. Although the emphasis changes considerably from paper to paper, in each contribution the same two themes are present; all the authors have aimed to achieve a suitable balance between the mathematical theory and the physical phenomena.
The authors investigate the dynamics of weakly-modulated nonlinear wave trains. For reaction-diffusion systems and for the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation, they establish rigorously that slowly varying modulations of wave trains are well approximated by solutions to the Burgers equation over the natural time scale. In addition to the validity of the Burgers equation, they show that the viscous shock profiles in the Burgers equation for the wave number can be found as genuine modulated waves in the underlying reaction-diffusion system. In other words, they establish the existence and stability of waves that are time-periodic in appropriately moving coordinate frames which separate regions in physical space that are occupied by wave trains of different, but almost identical, wave number. The speed of these shocks is determined by the Rankine-Hugoniot condition where the flux is given by the nonlinear dispersion relation of the wave trains. The group velocities of the wave trains in a frame moving with the interface are directed toward the interface. Using pulse-interaction theory, the authors also consider similar shock profiles for wave trains with large wave number, that is, for an infinite sequence of widely separated pulses. The results presented here are applied to the FitzHugh-Nagumo equation and to hydrodynamic stability problems.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.