Analysis & Applied Math

Event Information Stable planar vegetation stripe patterns on sloped terrain in dryland ecosystems
14:10 on Friday October 12, 2018
15:00 on Friday October 12, 2018
BA6183, Bahen Center, 40 St. George St.
Paul Carter

University of Arizona, Tucson

In water-limited regions, competition for water resources results in the formation of vegetation patterns; on sloped terrain, one finds that the vegetation typically aligns in stripes or arcs. The dynamics of these patterns can be modeled by reaction-diffusion PDEs describing the interplay of vegetation and water resources, where sloped terrain is modeled through advection terms representing the downhill flow of water. We focus on one such model in the 'large-advection' limit, and we prove the existence of traveling planar stripe patterns using analytical and geometric techniques. We also discuss implications for the stability of the resulting patterns, as well as the appearance of curved stripe solutions.