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Galerkin-Ritz procedures for approximate solutions to systems of reaction-diffusion equations

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Abstract

For any essentially nonlinear system of reaction-diffusion equations of the generic form ∂ci/∂t=Di2ci+Qi(c,x,t) supplemented with Robin type boundary conditions over the surface of a closed bounded three-dimensional region, it is demonstrated that all solutions for the concentration distributionn-tuple function c=(c 1(x,t),...,c n (x,t)) satisfy a differential variational condition. Approximate solutions to the reaction-diffusion intial-value boundary-value problem are obtainable by employing this variational condition in conjunction with a Galerkin-Ritz procedure. It is shown that the dynamical evolution from a prescribed initial concentrationn-tuple function to a final steady-state solution can be determined to desired accuracy by such an approximation method. The variational condition also admits a systematic Galerkin-Ritz procedure for obtaining approximate solutions to the multi-equation elliptic boundary-value problem for steady-state distributions c=−c(x). Other systems of phenomenological (non-Lagrangian) field equations can be treated by Galerkin-Ritz procedures based on analogues of the differential variational condition presented here. The method is applied to derive approximate nonconstant steady-state solutions for ann-species symbiosis model.

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Rosen, G. Galerkin-Ritz procedures for approximate solutions to systems of reaction-diffusion equations. Bltn Mathcal Biology 40, 853–863 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02460611

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