Essential instabilities of fronts: Bifurcation, and bifurcation failure

Various instability mechanisms of fronts in reaction-diffusion systems are analysed; the emphasis is on instabilities that have the potential to create modulated (i.e. time-periodic) waves near the primary front. Hopf bifurcations caused by point spectrum with associated localized eigenfunctions provide an example of such an instability. A different kind of instability occurs if one of the asymptotic rest states destabilizes: these instabilities are caused by essential spectrum. It is demonstrated that, if the rest state ahead of the front destabilizes, then modulated fronts are created that connect the rest state behind the front with small spatially periodic patterns ahead of the front. These modulated fronts are stable provided the spatially periodic patterns are stable. If, on the other hand, the rest state behind the front destabilizes, then modulated fronts that leave a spatially periodic pattern behind do not exist.