Stability of viscous detonations for Majda’s model

•We address Majda’s conjecture regarding the (spectral) stability of detonation waves in the Majda model.•We show, for the first time, the viability of Evans-function computation for viscous detonations.•Combined with previous analysis, our finding of spectral stability gives nonlinear stability for all computed waves.

Using analytical and numerical Evans-function techniques, we examine the spectral stability of strong-detonation-wave solutions of a version of Majda’s scalar model for a reacting gas mixture with an Arrhenius-type ignition function. We introduce an energy estimate to limit possible unstable eigenvalues to a compact region in the unstable complex half plane, and we use a numerical approximation of the Evans function to search for possible unstable eigenvalues in this region. Our results show, for the parameter values tested, that these waves are spectrally stable. Combining these numerical results with the pointwise Green function analysis of Lyng, Raoofi, Texier, & Zumbrun [G. Lyng, M. Raoofi, B. Texier, K. Zumbrun, Pointwise Green function bounds and stability of combustion waves, J. Differential Equations 233 (2) (2007) 654–698.], we conclude that these waves are nonlinearly stable. This represents the first demonstration of nonlinear stability for detonation-wave solutions of a Majda-type model without a smallness assumption. Notably, our results indicate that, for this simplified, scalar model, there does not occur, either in a normal parameter range or in the limit of high activation energy, Hopf bifurcation to “galloping” or “pulsating” solutions as is observed in the full reactive Navier–Stokes equations. This answers in the negative, for this model, a question posed by Majda as to whether such scalar detonation models capture this aspect of detonation behavior.