Front propagation in steady cellular flows

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• Dr Alexandra Tzella, UoB
• Thursday 30 January 2014, 13:45-15:00
• Theory Library.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Kevin Ralley.

We examine the propagation speed of Fisher–Kolmogorov– Petrovskii–Piskunov chemical fronts in steady cellular flows. A number of predictions have previously been derived assuming small molecular diffusivity (large Peclet number) and either slow (small Damköhler number) or fast (large Damköhler number) reactions. Here, we employ the theory of large deviations to obtain an eigenvalue problem whose solution provides a description of the front speed for all Damköhler values. We identify three distinguished regimes that correspond to three types of fronts whose speed is obtained using matched-asymptotics and WKB theory. Earlier results obtained for slow reactions are recovered as limiting cases while a correspondence with previous results obtained for fast reactions (using the so-called G-equation) is made.

(Joint work with Jacques Vanneste, University of Edinburgh)

This talk is part of the Theoretical Physics Seminars series.

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