Session 13. Global existence versus blowup in nonlinear parabolic systems

Exponential Equilibration in a Gradient Flow System Modelling Chemotaxis

Daniel Matthes, Technische Universität München, Germany
The talk is based on the joint work with Jonathan Zinsl (TU München)
We consider the following variant of the Keller-Segel system for chemotaxis, \begin{align*} \partial_t\rho &= \Delta(\rho^2) + \nabla\cdot\big(\rho[W+\varepsilon \phi(c)]\big), \\ \partial_t c &= \Delta c - \kappa c - \varepsilon \rho\phi'(c), \end{align*} with nonlinear mobility of the bacteria and a (possibly non-linear) chemotactic sensitivity \(\phi\). Solutions \((\rho,c)\) to this system of equations constitute a gradient flow in the coupled Wasserstein-\(L^2\)-metric. The flow's driving functional has no useful convexity properties with respect to that metric, but it is the \(\varepsilon\)-perturbation of an entropy functional that is \(\lambda\)-convex, with a positive \(\lambda\) if the external potential \(W\) is sufficiently confining. With the help of this special structure, we prove the global-in-time existence of weak solutions, and their convergence to equilibrium, exponentially fast in time.
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