Finite-time blow-up in a two-dimensional Keller--Segel system with an environmental dependent logistic source
Mario Fuest

TL;DR
This paper investigates finite-time blow-up and global existence in a 2D Keller--Segel chemotaxis system with environmental-dependent logistic source, revealing critical mass phenomena and conditions for blow-up or global solutions.
Contribution
It establishes conditions under which solutions blow up or exist globally, highlighting the role of environmental factors and nonlinearities in the Keller--Segel system.
Findings
Solutions blow up in finite time for initial mass above 8π.
Solutions are global for initial mass below 8π when κ ≡ 0.
Global solutions exist for p > 2 with certain growth conditions on μ.
Abstract
The Neumann initial-boundary problem for the chemotaxis system \begin{align} \label{prob:abstract} \tag{} \begin{cases} u_t = \Delta u - \nabla \cdot (u \nabla v) + \kappa(|x|) u - \mu(|x|) u^p, \\ 0 = \Delta v - \frac{m(t)}{|\Omega|} + u, \quad m(t) := \int_\Omega u(\cdot, t) \end{cases} \end{align} is studied in a ball , for and sufficiently smooth functions . We prove that whenever as well as for all and some then for all there exists with and a solution to \eqref{prob:abstract} with initial datum blowing up in finite time. If in addition then all solutions with initial mass smaller…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
\setkomafont
title
Finite-time blow-up in a two-dimensional Keller–Segel system with an environmental dependent logistic source
Mario [email protected]
Institut für Mathematik, Universität Paderborn,
33098 Paderborn, Germany
Abstract
The Neumann initial-boundary problem for the chemotaxis system
[TABLE]
is studied in a ball , for and sufficiently smooth functions .
We prove that whenever as well as for all and some then for all there exists with and a solution to ( ‣ Finite-time blow-up in a two-dimensional Keller–Segel system with an environmental dependent logistic source) with initial datum blowing up in finite time. If in addition then all solutions with initial mass smaller than are global in time, displaying a certain critical mass phenomenon.
On the other hand, if , we show that for all satisfying for all and some the system ( ‣ Finite-time blow-up in a two-dimensional Keller–Segel system with an environmental dependent logistic source) admits a global classical solution for each initial datum .
Key words: chemotaxis, critical mass, finite-time blow-up, logistic source
AMS Classification (2010): 35B44 (primary); 35B33, 35K65, 92C17 (secondary)
1 Introduction
We live in a heterogeneous environment and the fact that for instance growth or death rates may depend on spatial features has been incorporated into several models describing population dynamics. Among the more famous examples is the system
[TABLE]
with and , , , being a smooth, bounded domain, modelling two species and competing for a common resource, where represents a reproduction rate influenced by the environment.
It has the remarkable property that whenever , then there exists such that for any initial data with and the corresponding solution converges to – provided is not constant, which reflects spatial heterogeneity ([6]). If, however, is constant then is a steady state of (1.1) for all implying that species with different diffusion rates may coexist in homogeneous environments. Furthermore, there is considerable activtiy in the analysis of systems similar to (1.1); for instance, convections terms have been added to these equations ([19]) and the case of weak competition ([9, 18]) has been studied in great detail as well.
These results (among others) may arouse interest to consider environmental depending functions in other models as well: The system
[TABLE]
in , where , , is a smooth, bounded domain, and and are given parameters, is relevant in the modeling of, for instance, micro- and macroscopic population dynamics ([10], [27]) or tumor invasion processes ([3]).
For these so-called chemotaxis systems, at first introduced by Keller and Segel ([14]) even questions of global existence and boundedness are of great interest. After all, if one chooses in (1.2) in space-dimensions two ([11, 26]) and higher ([33]) there are initial data leading to blow-up. For a more broad introduction to Keller–Segel models, which have been intensively studied in the past decades, we refer to the survey [1].
Intuitively, the superlinear degrading term (with and ) in (1.2)) should somewhat decrease the possibility of (finite-time) blow-up. However, exactly how large and need to be in order to guarantee global existence seems to be an open question, even for constant .
If and all classical solutions to (1.2) exist globally in time ([21]). One may even replace by a function growing slightly slower than ([38]). The same holds true in higher dimensions, provided or and ([31]), while for and any at least global weak solutions have been constructed, which become smooth after finite time provided is small enough ([16]).
As chemicals can be assumed to diffuse much faster than cells a typical simplification of (1.2) is the parabolic-elliptic system
[TABLE]
For the conditions and suffice to ensure global existence while for , and or , and arbitrary the same can be achieved ([13, 29]).
On the other hand, any thresholds may be surpassed, if , and the diffusion is sufficiently weak, that is, in the first equation in (1.2) is replaced by for suitable ([34, 15]). This stays in contrast to the case without cross-diffusion as then always forms a supersolution and thus indicates that in chemotaxis systems with logistic source nontrivial structures may emerge at least on intermediate time scales.
Even more drastic formations are known to form if is chosen close to (but sill larger than) . After initial data causing finite-time blow-up have been constructed in dimensions five and higher for certain in a system closely related to (1.3) in [32], in [36] finite-time blow-up has also been shown to occur in (1.3) for any and
[TABLE]
Hence, at least in space-dimensions three and higher even superlinear degegration terms do not always ensure global existence.
The case of and depending on space (and time) has also been studied. In their three-paper series [23, 24, 25] Salako and Shen showed inter alia global existence of solutions to (1.3) with provided .
Main results
Apparently, rigorously proving blow-up in Keller–Segel systems is a difficult problem. Known proofs for parabolic-parabolic chemotaxis systems strongly rely on certain energy structures ([4, 11, 30]) while in the parabolic-elliptic setting additional approaches are moment-type arguments ([2, 20])
However, all these methods appear inadequate for chemotaxis systems with logistic source. In this paper we further simplify (1.3) and consider
[TABLE]
for given functions and where we henceforth fix and . Our main results are the following.
1.1 Theorem.
Let , , and suppose that satisfy
[TABLE]
as well as
[TABLE]
For any there exist and such that if
[TABLE]
with
[TABLE]
then there exists a classical solution to (P) with initial datum blowing up in finite time; that is, there exists such that
[TABLE]
1.2 Remark.
To give a more concrete example, the conditions (1.4) and (1.5) are for instance fulfilled if , is a constant and .
This result will be complemented by two statements on global solvability. Firstly, we show at least in the case the value – which does not, as one could have expected, depend on or – is essentially optimal.
1.3 Proposition.
Let , and . For any nonnegative radially symmetric with there exists a global classical solution to (P) with initial datum .
Secondly, if , we prove that for arbitrary initial data global classical solutions exist provided does not grow too fast.
1.4 Proposition.
Let , , and . If
[TABLE]
then (P) admits a global classical solution for any nonnegative initial datum .
Plan of the paper
For the proof of Theorem 1.1 we will rely on a transformation introduced by Jäger and Luckhaus in [12]. As will be seen in Lemma 2.3 below the function defined by
[TABLE]
solves the scalar PDI
[TABLE]
In similar – but higher dimensional – settings for certain the function
[TABLE]
where denotes a similar transformed quantity, has been shown to solve a certain ODI implying finite-time blow-up ([35], [36]).
However, these techniques seem to be insufficient to provide any insights in the two dimensional setting, as the term stemming from the diffusion can apparently not be dealt with anymore.
Therefore, we follow a different approach. In order to show finite-time blow-up for (P) with in the planar setting Winkler ([37]) has recently utilized the function
[TABLE]
for certain instead. Most terms in (1.10) can be dealt similarly as in [37] – except for the nonlocal term which is, of course, not present if .
The main idea for dealing with this integral is to derive a pointwise bound for (Lemma 3.8) and then integrate by parts, where the condition is apparently needed in order to able to handle the remaining terms (Lemma 3.10).
Finally, we will then see by an ODI comparison argument that for suitably chosen initial data (and hence ) cannot exist globally in time.
2 Preliminaries
The following statement on local existence, in its essence based on a fixed point argument, is standard. Hence we may omit a proof here and just refer to, for instance, [5] or [29] for more detailed arguments in similar frameworks.
2.1 Lemma.
Let and . Then there exist and a classical solution to (P) uniquely determined by
[TABLE]
and
[TABLE]
Moreover, this solution is nonnegative in the first component, radially symmetric if is radially symmetric and such that if then
[TABLE]
Unless otherwise stated we henceforth fix satisfying (1.6) as well as fulfilling (1.4) and denote the corresponding solution provided by Lemma 2.1 by as well as the maximal existence time by . Finally, we set and .
2.2 Lemma.
For all the inequalities
[TABLE]
hold.
Proof.
Nonnegativity of implies while an ODI comparison argument yields for due to in . ∎
As mentioned in the introduction the proof of Theorem 1.1 will rely on transforming (P) into a scalar equation.
2.3 Lemma.
Define
[TABLE]
Then
[TABLE]
and
[TABLE]
for and .
Proof.
The first two equations in (P) read in radial form
[TABLE]
that is
[TABLE]
Thus, a direct calculation yields
[TABLE]
for and . ∎
3 Supercritical mass allows for blow-up
Crucially relying on transforming (P) into the scalar equation (2.3) we will prove Theorem 1.1 at the end of this section.
3.1 The function
3.1 Lemma.
Let and . The function
[TABLE]
belongs to and satisfies
[TABLE]
for all .
Proof.
As by Lemma 2.3, the asserted regularity of follows from standard Lebesgue integration theory, while (3.1) is then a direct consequence of Lemma 2.3 and nonnegativity of and . ∎
Our goal is to show that after an appropriate choice of parameters satisfies a certain ODI, which then implies finiteness of .
3.2 Lemma.
Let . If satisfies
[TABLE]
in with
[TABLE]
then necessarily .
Proof.
As
[TABLE]
the ODI implies that is increasing if and only if or . Since
[TABLE]
and
[TABLE]
we conclude that is indeed increasing in and satisfies
[TABLE]
in .
Hence by integrating we obtain
[TABLE]
which is absurd for . ∎
Apart from the nonlocal term in (3.1) all integrals therein as well as can be estimated as in [37, Lemma 3.2]. For sake of completeness we nonetheless give short proofs for the following lemmata.
3.3 Lemma.
Let and as well as and . If
[TABLE]
with , then
[TABLE]
Proof.
Set . As is increasing (due to ) we have
[TABLE]
3.4 Lemma.
Let and . Then for all
[TABLE]
holds, where is defined in (3.1).
Proof.
By integrating by parts twice we obtain for
[TABLE]
Because the definition of and Lemma (2.2) warrant that
[TABLE]
a consequence thereof is (3.2). ∎
3.5 Lemma.
Let , and . With and as in (3.1)
[TABLE]
holds then for all .
Proof.
Let . An integration by parts yields
[TABLE]
while by another integration by parts and Young’s inequality we have
[TABLE]
As also by Hölder’s inequality
[TABLE]
that is,
[TABLE]
we conclude (3.3). ∎
3.2 The fourth integral
In order to be able to advantageously integrate by parts in the nonlocal term in (3.1) we first derive a pointwise bound for , which in turn is prepared by the following two lemmata.
3.6 Lemma.
In the inequality holds.
Proof.
As we have by the second equation in (P)
[TABLE]
hence upon integrating
[TABLE]
Again by the second equation in (P) we have such that a direct consequence thereof is . ∎
3.7 Lemma.
Throughout we have .
Proof.
Without loss of generality we may assume that with on , as for less regular initial data the statement follows by an approximation procedure as in [35, Lemma 2.2].
Since additionally by elliptic regularity theory (cf. [7, Theorem 19.1]) for all we may invoke [17, Theorem 1.1] to obtain
[TABLE]
Hence, fixing and letting , the function belongs to as well as to and satisfies, due to in ,
[TABLE]
wherein
[TABLE]
for .
As and by (1.4), due to radial symmetry, since in and because of (1.6) we have
[TABLE]
Lemma 3.6 warrants that in , hence , such that the comparison principle [22, Proposition 52.4] becomes applicable and yields . The statement follows then upon taking . ∎
3.8 Lemma.
We have
[TABLE]
for all .
Proof.
Let and . On the one hand we have by Lemma 3.7
[TABLE]
and one the other hand by Lemma 2.2
[TABLE]
such that
[TABLE]
The statement follows due to for and . ∎
3.9 Remark.
The exponent in Lemma 3.8 is essentially optimal. Indeed, if we were able to show for some and and all , then also for and . However, this would yield for some and all finite , which in turn would rapidly imply , confer the proof of Proposition 1.4 below.
With these preparations at hand we are finally able to deal with the fourth integral on the right-hand side of (3.1).
3.10 Lemma.
Let , and suppose that satisfies (1.5) for some and . Then
[TABLE]
for all , where and .
Proof.
Let . Due to (1.5) we see that , such that an application of Lemma 3.8 and an integration by parts yield
[TABLE]
for . ∎
3.3 Conclusion. Proof of Theorem 1.1
As it turns out, for any initial mass we are able to find a suitable initial datum with as well as sufficiently small and sufficiently large such that a combination of the estimates above makes Lemma 3.2 applicable – implying that and hence must blow up in finite time.
Proof of Theorem 1.1.
Let and .
The function
[TABLE]
defined by
[TABLE]
is continuous and satisfies
[TABLE]
Thus, due to our assumption that we may first choose and then , , and as well as such that
[TABLE]
For let
[TABLE]
then there exist such that
[TABLE]
for all .
Hence we may choose small enough such that
[TABLE]
Set also
[TABLE]
then
[TABLE]
by (3.4).
Suppose now that comply with (1.4) and (1.5) and that satisfies (1.6) and (1.7) with , but that the corresponding solution given by Lemma 2.1 is global in time. Due to the lemmata above the function defined in Lemma 3.1 would then fulfill
[TABLE]
where we abbreviated and .
However, as
[TABLE]
where we have again set , Lemma 3.2 would imply , hence our assumption that must be false.
Finally, (1.8) is a direct consequence of Lemma 2.1. ∎
4 Notes on global solvability
Finally, we include short proofs for Proposition 1.3 and Proposition 1.4.
Proof of Proposition 1.3.
This proof is based on a comparison principle for the scalar equation (2.2). A similar idea (with a similar supersolution) has been employed in [28, Lemma 5.2].
Let be nonnegative and radially symmetric with as well as and be as constructed in Lemma 2.1 and defined in Lemma 2.3, respectively. Then we may choose and as in and
[TABLE]
we may also choose such that
[TABLE]
fulfills in .
Furthermore, by a direct computation
[TABLE]
for all , hence
[TABLE]
for all because of .
Therefore, is a supersolution of (2.3), fulfills and as well as such that the comparison principle warrants in .
As for all this implies
[TABLE]
Due to non-degeneracy of (2.3) outside of the origin and boundedness of parabolic regularity ensures implying by Lemma 2.1. ∎
Proof of Proposition 1.4.
Let , , , be such that (1.9) holds, and denote the corresponding solution given by Lemma 2.1 by .
By our assumption on there exists . Testing the first equation with gives
[TABLE]
in , wherein
[TABLE]
in for some by Young’s inequality (with exponents and ).
By the definition of we have , hence the function satisfies in for some .
Assuming for the sake of contradiction , this implies , hence by elliptic regularity theory (cf. [7, Theorem 19.1]) is finite as well. Therefore, the Sobolev embedding theorem warrants finiteness of . Finally, as , a semi-group argument as in [8, Lemma 4.1] shows boundedness of in – contradicting Lemma 2.1. ∎
Acknowledgments
The author is partially supported by the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the project Emergence of structures and advantages in cross-diffusion systems, project number 411007140.
The reference list from the paper itself. Each links out to its DOI / PubMed record.
- 1[1] N. Bellomo, A. Bellouquid, Y. Tao, and M. Winkler. Toward a mathematical theory of Keller–Segel models of pattern formation in biological tissues. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. , 25(09):1663–1763, 2015. doi:10.1142/S 021820251550044 X . · doi ↗
- 2[2] P. Biler. Local and global solvability of some systems modelling chemotaxis. Adv. Math. Sci. Appl. , 8, 1998.
- 3[3] M. A. J. Chaplain and G. Lolas. Mathematical modelling of cancer cell invasion of tissue: the role of the urokinase plasminogen activation system. Math. Models Methods Appl. Sci. , 15(11):1685–1734, 2005. doi:10.1142/S 0218202505000947 . · doi ↗
- 4[4] T. Cieślak and P. Laurençot. Finite time blow-up for a one-dimensional quasilinear parabolic–parabolic chemotaxis system. Annales de l’Institut Henri Poincare (C) Non Linear Analysis , 27(1):437–446, 2010. doi:10.1016/j.anihpc.2009.11.016 . · doi ↗
- 5[5] T. Cieślak and M. Winkler. Finite-time blow-up in a quasilinear system of chemotaxis. Nonlinearity , 21(5):1057–1076, 2008. doi:10.1088/0951-7715/21/5/009 . · doi ↗
- 6[6] J. Dockery, V. Hutson, K. Mischaikow, and M. Pernarowski. The evolution of slow dispersal rates: a reaction diffusion model. J. Math. Biol. , 37(1):61–83, 1998. doi:10.1007/s 002850050120 . · doi ↗
- 7[7] A. Friedman. Partial differential equations . R. E. Krieger Pub. Co, Huntington, N.Y, 1976.
- 8[8] M. Fuest. Boundedness enforced by mildly saturated conversion in a chemotaxis-May–Nowak model for virus infection. J. Math. Anal. Appl. , 472(2):1729–1740, 2019. doi:10.1016/j.jmaa.2018.12.020 . · doi ↗
