Nonlocal dispersal equations in time-periodic media: principal spectral theory, bifurcation and asymptotic behaviors

Abstract: This paper is devoted to the investigation of the following nonlocal dispersal equation $$ u_{t}(t,x)=\frac{D}{\sigma^m}\left[\int_{\Omega}J_\sigma(x-y)u(t,y)dy-u(t,x)\right]+f(t,x,u(t,x)), \quad t>0,\quad x\in\overline{\Omega}, $$ where $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{N}$ is a bounded and connected domain with smooth boundary, $m\in[0,2)$, $D>0$ is the dispersal rate, $\sigma>0$ characterizes the dispersal range, $J_{\sigma}=\frac{1}{\sigma^{N}} J\left(\frac{\cdot}{\sigma}\right)$ is the scaled dispersal kernel, and $f$ is a time-periodic nonlinear function of generalized KPP type. We first study the principal spectral theory of the linear operator associated to the linearization of the equation at $u\equiv0$. We obtain an easily verifiable and general condition for the existence of the principal eigenvalue as well as important sup-inf characterizations for the principal eigenvalue. We next study the influence of the principal eigenvalue on the global dynamics and confirm the criticality of the principal eigenvalue being zero. It is then followed by the study of the effects of the dispersal rate $D$ and the dispersal range characterized by $\sigma$ on the principal eigenvalue and the positive time-periodic solution, and prove various asymptotic behaviors of the principal eigenvalue and the positive time-periodic solution when $D,\sigma\to0^{+}$ or $\infty$. Finally, we establish the maximum principle for time-periodic nonlocal operator.