Multiple solutions of a boundary-value problem in enzyme kinetics (Q1820079)

The authors start with the reaction-diffusion equation \(u_ t-D\cdot \Delta u=-\sigma \cdot f(u)\) with f(u) given by the Michaelis-Menten function \(u/(1+u+ku^ 2)\) describing the activity of an enzyme characterized by k. The first question is for conditions such that the steady state equation \(\Delta u=\sigma f(u)\) (with linear boundary conditions) has multiple solutions. It turns out that sufficient conditions in terms of two intervals for \(\sigma\) can be given, such that for \(\sigma \in I_ 1\) constants \(c_ i\) can be given with \[ 0\quad \precsim \quad u_ 1(x)\quad \precsim \quad c_ 1\quad \prec \quad c_ 2\quad \precsim \quad u_ 2(x)\quad \precsim \quad c_ 3 \] for two solutions \(u_ 1\), \(u_ 2\), and for \(\sigma \in I_ 2\) the system has exactly one solution. These intervals depend on some properties of f(u) and on the solutions of \(\Delta u=h(x)\) with h piecewise continuous. In numerical experiments multiplicity was found in an even greater interval \(I\supset I_ 1\). Furthermore it was seen that the solutions of the time dependent equation actually converge to the steady state solutions for t large enough.