Well-posedness and exponential equilibration of a volume-surface reaction-diffusion system with nonlinear boundary coupling (Q1706714)

Motivated by models of asymmetric stem cell division the authors study a nonlinear volume-surface reaction-diffusion system where a diffusion equation \[ u_t =\delta_u \Delta u \] for a volume-concentration \(u(t,x)\) in some domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n\) is coupled to a surface-diffusion equation \[ v_t -\delta_v \Delta_\Gamma v = \beta(k_uu^\alpha -k_vv^\beta) \] for a surface-concentration \(v(t,x)\) on the boundary \(\Gamma=\partial \Omega\). The reversible reaction modelled by the right hand side together with a nonlinear boundary condition ensures that the total mass \[ M= \alpha \int_\Omega u(t,x)\,dx +\beta \int_\Gamma v(t,x)\,dS \] is preserved. The first main result states that for \(\Gamma\in C^{2+\varepsilon}\), stoichiometric coefficients \(\alpha,\beta\geq 1\) and under some conditions on the reaction rates \(k_u\) and \(k_v\) for all non-negative initial data \((u_0, v_0) \in L^\infty\times L^\infty\) there exists a unique non-negative global weak solution \((u, v)\). The rather technical proof uses upper and lower solutions together with an iteration argument. A second result consists in the proof that solutions converge exponentially fast to an equilibrium state. This is achieved via the entropy method by establishing a new entropy entropy-dissipation estimate. The cases of a non-degenrate diffusion (\(\delta_v>0\)) and degenerate diffusion (\(\delta_v=0\)) can both be handled and lead to explicit estimates for the exponential decay. Although the proofs involve many steps with lots of intermediate estimates the authors succeed in explaining and motivating the different subcases and steps that are necessary to arrive at the final estimate.