Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ii/paper-4/13b/solution

A positive spatially homogeneous equilibrium satisfies and , giving
It exists iff . The reaction Jacobian matrix is
Thus linear stability analysis gives strict homogeneous stability precisely when
The boundaries are not included: at the linearization has purely imaginary exponents, and at the positive equilibrium ceases to exist.
For a mode , put . The perturbation matrix is . In the homogeneously stable region its trace is still negative, so a growing mode exists iff its determinant is negative:
This upward quadratic is negative for some precisely when
Such a Turing instability region is nonempty iff . The unstable band is
For a finite domain only the admissible boundary-condition wavenumbers in this band grow. The region shown below describes a continuous wavenumber spectrum.
Figure 1.
Homogeneous stability and diffusion-driven instability for d=4
.
At onset the minimum of is zero and . On the threshold , substitution gives . Hence
This last expression is the threshold wavenumber; away from onset the fastest-growing mode need not coincide with the minimum of the determinant.

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