Unimodality of steady size distributions of growing cell populations (Q1602288)

From MaRDI portal
scientific article
Language Label Description Also known as
English
Unimodality of steady size distributions of growing cell populations
scientific article

    Statements

    Unimodality of steady size distributions of growing cell populations (English)
    0 references
    19 October 2003
    0 references
    The authors investigate a hyperbolic functional partial differential equation, \(n_t(x,t)=A(n)\), where \[ A(n)\equiv -(g(x)n(x,t))_x-b(x)n(x,t)+\alpha^2b(\alpha x)n(\alpha x),\quad x\in \mathbb{R}_+. \] This describes the evolution of a population of growing and dividing cells. Here a mother cell of size \(x\) divides into \(\alpha >1\) (usually \(\alpha =2\)) daughter cells of the same size \(x\). The function \(g(x)\) is the growth rate and \(b(x)\) is the division rate of a cell of size \(x\). There is no mortality of cells, so the reasonable boundary conditions for this model are \(g(0)n(0,t)=0\) and \(\lim_{x\to\infty }g(x)n(x,t)=0\) \(t>0\). The main result is that the eigenfunction \(y(x)\) of the operator \(A(n)\) is unimodal. The authors use a known result of \textit{T. Kato} and \textit{J. B. McLeod} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 77, 891-937 (1971; Zbl 0236.34064)] to discuss that the probability density function for the stationary size distribution is necessarily unimodal.
    0 references
    growing and dividing cells
    0 references
    stationary size distribution
    0 references
    unimodality
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references

    Identifiers

    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references
    0 references