Pulsating semi-waves in periodic media and spreading speed determined by a free boundary model

We consider a radially symmetric free boundary problem with logistic nonlinear term. The spatial environment is assumed to be asymptotically periodic at infinity in the radial direction. For such a free boundary problem, it is known from [7] that a spreading-vanishing dichotomy holds. However, when spreading occurs, only upper and lower bounds are obtained in [7] for the asymptotic spreading speed. In this paper, we investigate one-dimensional pulsating semi-waves in spatially periodic media. We prove existence, uniqueness of such pulsating semi-waves, and show that the asymptotic spreading speed of the free boundary problem coincides with the speed of the corresponding pulsating semi-wave. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.