Finite Element Computation of KPP Front Speeds in Cellular and Cat's Eye Flows

We compute the front speeds of the Kolmogorov-Petrovsky-Piskunov (KPP) reactive fronts in two prototypes of periodic incompressible flows (the cellular flows and the cat’s eye flows). The computation is based on adaptive streamline diffusion methods for the advection-diffusion type principal eigenvalue problem associated with the KPP front speeds. In the large amplitude regime, internal layers form in eigenfunctions. Besides recovering known speed growth law for the cellular flow, we found larger growth rates of front speeds in cat’s eye flows due to the presence of open channels, and the front speed slowdown due to either zero Neumann boundary condition at domain boundaries or frequency increase of cat’s eye flows.