ON THE INTEGRABILITY, BÄCKLUND TRANSFORMATION AND SYMMETRY ASPECTS OF A GENERALIZED FISHER TYPE NONLINEAR REACTION–DIFFUSION EQUATION

The dynamics of nonlinear reaction–diffusion systems is dominated by the onset of patterns, and Fisher equation is considered to be a prototype of such diffusive equations. Here we investigate the integrability properties of a generalized Fisher equation in both (1+1) and (2+1) dimensions. A Painlevé singularity structure analysis singles out a special case (m=2) as integrable. More interestingly, a Bäcklund transformation is shown to give rise to a linearizing transformation for the integrable case. A Lie symmetry analysis again separates out the same m=2 case as the integrable one and hence we report several physically interesting solutions via similarity reductions. Thus we give a group theoretical interpretation for the system under study. Explicit and numerical solutions for specific cases of nonintegrable systems are also given. In particular, the system is found to exhibit different types of traveling wave solutions and patterns, static structures and localized structures. Besides the Lie symmetry analysis, nonclassical and generalized conditional symmetry analysis are also carried out.