Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/ii/paper-4/14a/b/solution

If , both species have the same diffusion coefficient. For a perturbation proportional to , diffusion replaces by , shifting both reaction eigenvalues to the left by . Since the homogeneous equilibrium is already stable, every spatial mode remains stable.
For general , put . The mode matrix is
Its trace is
while its determinant is
With negative trace, instability occurs exactly when for some . The two-species diffusion-driven instability criterion says that this upward-opening quadratic has a negative minimum precisely when
Equivalently, the condition is
This is the Turing instability region.

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