Propagation phenomena for time heterogeneous KPP reaction–diffusion equations

We investigate in this paper propagation phenomena for the heterogeneous reaction-diffusion equation∂ t u - Δ u = f (t, u), x ∈ R N, t ∈ R, where f = f (t, u) is a KPP monostable nonlinearity which depends in a general way on t ∈ R. A typical f which satisfies our hypotheses is f (t, u) = μ (t) u (1 - u), with μ ∈ L ∞ (R) such that ess inf t ∈ R μ (t) > 0. We first prove the existence of generalized transition waves (recently defined in Berestycki and Hamel (2007) ) for a given class of speeds. As an application of this result, we obtain the existence of random transition waves when f is a random stationary ergodic function with respect to t ∈ R. Lastly, we prove some spreading properties for the solution of the Cauchy problem.