Shrinking vs. expanding: the evolution of spatial support in degenerate Keller-Segel systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the initial shape of radially symmetric solutions influences the early evolution of their support in degenerate Keller-Segel systems, revealing conditions for shrinking or expanding behavior based on initial data flatness or steepness.

Contribution

It provides explicit criteria linking initial data profiles to the initial support dynamics, highlighting the role of boundary regularity in the evolution of Keller-Segel systems.

Findings

Support shrinks if initial data is sufficiently flat near boundary.

Support expands if initial data is sufficiently steep near boundary.

Explicit critical constant determines the transition between shrinking and expanding support.

Abstract

We consider radially symmetric solutions of the degenerate Keller-Segel system \begin{align*} \begin{cases} \partial_t u=\nabla\cdot (u^{m-1}\nabla u - u\nabla v),\\ 0=\Delta v -\mu +u,\quad\mu =\frac{1}{|\Omega|}\int_\Omega u, \end{cases} \end{align*} in balls $\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n$, $n\ge 1$, where $m>1$ is arbitrary. Our main result states that the initial evolution of the positivity set of $u$ is essentially determined by the shape of the (nonnegative, radially symmetric, H\"older continuous) initial data $u_0$ near the boundary of its support $\overline{B_{r_1}(0)}\subsetneq\Omega$: It shrinks for sufficiently flat and expands for sufficiently steep $u_0$. More precisely, there exists an explicit constant $A_{\mathrm{crit}} \in (0, \infty)$ (depending only on $m, n, R, r_1$ and $\int_\Omega u_0$) such that if \begin{align*} u_0(x)\le A(r_1-|x|)^\frac{1}{m-1} \qquad \text{for all $|x|\in(r_0, r_1)$ and some $r_0\in(0,r_1)$ and $A<A_{\mathrm{crit}}$}, \end{align*} then there are $T>0$ and $\zeta>0$ such that $\sup\{\, |x| \mid x \in \operatorname{supp} u(\cdot, t)\,\}\le r_1 -\zeta t$ for all $t\in(0, T)$, while if \begin{align*} u_0(x)\ge A(r_1-|x|)^\frac{1}{m-1} \qquad \text{for all $|x|\in(r_0, r_1)$ and some $r_0 \in (0, r_1)$ and $A>A_{\mathrm{crit}}$}, \end{align*} then we can find $T>0$ and $\zeta>0$ such that $\sup\{\, |x| \mid x \in \operatorname{supp} u(\cdot, t)\,\}\ge r_1 +\zeta t$ for all $t\in(0, T)$.