Liouville Type Property and Spreading Speeds of KPP Equations in Periodic Media with Localized Spatial Inhomogeneity

Abstract: The current paper is devoted to the study of semilinear dispersal evolution equations of the form $$ u_t(t,x)=(\mathcal{A}u)(t,x)+u(t,x)f(t,x,u(t,x)),\quad x\in\mathcal{H}, $$ where $\mathcal{H}=\RR^N$ or $\ZZ^N$, $\mathcal{A}$ is a random dispersal operator or nonlocal dispersal operator in the case $\mathcal{H}=\RR^N$ and is a discrete dispersal operator in the case $\mathcal{H}=\ZZ^N$, and $f$ is periodic in $t$, asymptotically periodic in $x$ (i.e. $f(t,x,u)-f_0(t,x,u)$ converges to 0 as $|x|\to\infty$ for some time and space periodic function $f_0(t,x,u)$), and is of KPP type in $u$. It is proved that Liouville type property for such equations holds, that is, time periodic strictly positive solutions are unique. It is also proved that if $u\equiv 0$ is a linearly unstable solution to the time and space periodic limit equation of such an equation, then it has a unique stable time periodic strictly positive solution and has a spatial spreading speed in every direction.