A degenerate isoperimetric problems and traveling waves to a bi-stable Hamiltonian system

Abstract

We analyze a non-standard isoperimetric problem in the plane associated with a metric having degenerate conformal factor at two points. Under certain assump- tions on the conformal factor, we establish the existence of curves of least length under a constraint associated with enclosed Euclidean area. As a motivation for and application of this isoperimetric problem, we identify these isoperimet- ric curves, appropriately parametrized, as traveling wave solutions to a bi-stable Hamiltonian system of PDE’s. We also determine the existence of a maximal propagation speed for these traveling waves through an explicit upper bound de- pending on the conformal factor.