Propagation phenomena for time heterogeneous KPP reaction-diffusion equations

Abstract: We investigate in this paper propagation phenomena for the heterogeneous reaction-diffusion equation $\partial_t u -\Delta u = f(t,u)$, $x\in R^N$, $t\in\R$, where f=f(t,u) is a KPP monostable nonlinearity which depends in a general way on t. A typical f which satisfies our hypotheses is f(t,u)=m(t) u(1-u), with m bounded and having positive infimum. We first prove the existence of generalized transition waves (recently defined by Berestycki and Hamel, Shen) for a given class of speeds. As an application of this result, we obtain the existence of random transition waves when f is a random stationary ergodic function with respect to t. Lastly, we prove some spreading properties for the solution of the Cauchy problem.