Paper 4, Section II, B

Mathematical Biology
Part II, 2017

An activator-inhibitor system is described by the equations

ut=u(c+uv)+2ux2vt=v(aubv)+d2vx2\begin{aligned} &\frac{\partial u}{\partial t}=u(c+u-v)+\frac{\partial^{2} u}{\partial x^{2}} \\ &\frac{\partial v}{\partial t}=v(a u-b v)+d \frac{\partial^{2} v}{\partial x^{2}} \end{aligned}

where a,b,c,d>0a, b, c, d>0.

Find and sketch the range of a,ba, b for which the spatially homogeneous system has a stable stationary solution with u>0u>0 and v>0v>0.

Considering spatial perturbations of the form cos(kx)\cos (k x) about the solution found above, find conditions for the system to be unstable. Sketch this region in the (a,b)(a, b)-plane for fixed dd (for a value of dd such that the region is non-empty).

Show that kck_{c}, the critical wavenumber at the onset of the instability, is given by

kc=2acdak_{c}=\sqrt{\frac{2 a c}{d-a}}