Persistence of the reaction term in an unbalanced fast reaction limit

Abstract

We study a fast reaction limit for a two-component reaction-diffusion system in which one component diffuses and the other does not. In the regime considered here, the nondiffusing component converges to zero as the reaction rate tends to infinity, while the reaction term has a nonzero limit. As a result, the limiting equation for the diffusing component retains a time-integral term. Our results cover both homogeneous Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. We prove convergence of the diffusing component and determine the limiting behavior of the reaction term and the rescaled nondiffusing component. The proof combines monotonicity with respect to the reaction rate with barrier estimates adapted to the time-integral term. Under an additional separation condition on the initial data, we also prove uniqueness of the limiting initial-boundary value problem.