Global dynamics of a two-species chemotaxis-consumption system with signal-dependent motilities (Q2215480)

This article investigates the existence of global nonnegative classical solutions and their long time asymptotic of a two species chemotaxis-consumption model with signal dependent motilities. The authors are particularly interested in the following system \[ \begin{cases} \partial_t u = \Delta (\gamma_1(w)u) + \mu_1u(1-u-a_1v),\\ \partial_t v = \Delta (\gamma_2(w)v) + \mu_2v(1-a_2u-v), \qquad\qquad (x,t) \in \Omega \times (0,\infty)\\ \partial_t w = \Delta w - (\alpha u + \beta v)w, \end{cases} \] posed in a spatially smooth bounded habitat domain \(\Omega\) of either \(\mathbb{R}^2\) or \(\mathbb{R}^3\), supplemented with initial and boundary conditions \[ \begin{cases} u|_{t=0} = u_0, \ v|_{t=0} = v_0, \ w|_{t=0} = w_0, \quad &\text{in } \Omega \\ \frac{\partial u}{\partial \nu} = \frac{\partial v}{\partial \nu} = \frac{\partial w}{\partial \nu} = 0, &\text{on } \partial \Omega. \end{cases} \] In this setting, \(u(x, t)\) and \(v(x, t)\) represent the respective densities of the two populations, \(w(x, t)\) denotes the concentration of the chemoattractant, \(\gamma_i\) are the motility functions governing the repressive effect of the chemical concentration on the organisms, and \(\mu_i, a_i, \alpha, \beta\) are positive constants. Under the following assumptions on the initial data and decay on the motility functions \begin{itemize} \item \(u_0, v_0, w _0\in W^{1, \infty}(\Omega),\) nonnegative (not identically zero), \item \(\gamma_i \in C^3([0,\infty);(0,\infty)), \gamma^{\prime}<0, \lim_{s \rightarrow \infty} \gamma_i(s) =0, \lim_{s \rightarrow \infty} \frac{\gamma_i^{\prime}(x)}{\gamma_i(s)}\) finite \end{itemize} and some largeness assumption on \(\mu_i\) in spatially 3-dimension, the authors proved that the system admits a unique global classical solution. Moreover, in the three dimensional setting, the asymptotic stability of the constant steady states with rate of convergence are also discussed. It is shown that, as time \(t \rightarrow \infty\), the solution \((u(\cdot,t), v(\cdot,t), w(\cdot,t))\) converges in the \(L^{\infty}\)-norm to \begin{itemize} \item \((\frac{1-a_1}{1-a_1a_2}, \frac{1-a_2}{1-a_1a_2}, 0)\) if \(a_1,a_2 \in (0,1).\) \item \((0,1,0)\) \qquad \qquad \ if \(a_1 \geq 1 > a_2.\) \end{itemize} The solution converges (in \(L^{\infty}\) norm) exponentially fast to the above steady states provided \(a_1 \neq 1.\) If \(a_1 =1\) the authors showed that the rate of convergence has polynomial decay. The proof of global existence is based on suitable a priori estimates followed by a Moser-Alikakos type iteration procedure motivated by the related works of [\textit{Y. Tao} and \textit{M. Winkler}, J. Differ. Equations 252, No. 1, 692--715 (2012; Zbl 1382.35127); \textit{Y. Tao}, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 381, No. 2, 521--529 (2011; Zbl 1225.35118)]. Since \(\min_w \gamma_i(w)=0,\) degeneracy in the diffusion may appear. To overcome this difficulty, following the ideas of [\textit{H.Y. Jin} et al., SIAM J. Appl. Math. 78, No. 3, 1632--1657 (2018; Zbl 1393.35100)], in two dimension, the authors treat \(\gamma_i(w)\) as weight functions in the energy estimates to control the nonlinear advection term using the weighted diffusive dissipation along with the logistic damping. However, this approach can not be adopted in the case of dimension 3. The authors employed a further energy estimate concerning \(\int |\nabla w|^{2q}, q>1\) to control the \(L^2\)-norm of the population densities if \(\mu_i\)s are large enough. The asymptotic stability with the above mentioned rate of convergence has been achieved by constructing suitable energy functionals in spirit of the work [\textit{X. Bai} and \textit{M. Winkler}, Indiana Univ. Math. J. 65, No. 2, 553--583 (2016; Zbl 1345.35117)]. Reviewer's remark: There are a few typographical errors in equations in the introduction section. \(u\) should be replaced by \(\nabla u\) in the equations (1.1)--(1.4).