Existence of the global attractor for a strongly coupled parabolic system arising in population dynamics (Q1891312)

In this paper the author considers a reaction-diffusion system of the form \[ u_t = \Delta \bigl[ (d_1 + cv) u \bigr] + uf(u,v), \quad v_t = d_2 \Delta v + vg(u,v), \quad t > 0, \;x \in \Omega, \tag{1} \] where \(u\) and \(v\) stand for the densities of the two species, \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) with smooth boundary \(\partial \Omega\), and \(d_1\), \(d_2\) are positive diffusion coefficients, \(\Delta\) denotes the Laplacian as usually. The functions \(f\) and \(g\) in (1) are mainly considered to be of the form \(f(u,v) \equiv e_1 - h(u) - a_1 v\), \(g(u,v) \equiv e_2 - a_2u - b_2v\), where the \(a_i, e_i, b_2\) are positive constants and where the function \(h\) is assumed to have the following properties \(h \in C^2 (\mathbb{R}, \mathbb{R})\) and \(\liminf_{s \to \infty} h(s)/s^\lambda > 0\) for some \(\lambda > 0\), \(h \in O (s^k)\) as \(s \to \infty\) for some \(k > 0\). Equations (1) are supplemented by nonnegative initial conditions \[ u(0,x) = u_0 (x) \geq 0, \quad v(0,x) = v_0(x) \geq 0, \text{ in } \Omega \tag{2} \] and by homogeneous boundary conditions of the form \[ \delta u + (1 - \delta) u_\gamma = 0, \quad \delta v + (1 - \delta) v_\gamma = 0 \quad \text{on} \quad \partial \Omega \quad \text{for} \quad t > 0 \tag{3} \] with given \(\delta \in C (\partial \Omega, \{0,1\})\) and \(\gamma\) denoting the outer unit normal on \(\partial \Omega\). The main result of the paper states: Theorem: Let \(X = \{\varphi \in W^{1,p} (\Omega, \mathbb{R}^2)\): \(\varphi \geq 0\) in \(\Omega\) and \(\delta \varphi = 0\) on \(\partial \Omega\}\). Then, for any \((u_0, v_0) \in X\), the solution \((u,v)\) to (1) (2) (3) is nonnegative, unique and exists for all \(t > 0\). Moreover, the family of operators \(\{S(t) : t \geq 0\}\) given by \[ S(t) (u_0, v_0) = \bigl( u(t; u_0, v_0), v(t; u_0, v_0) \bigr) \text{ for } t \geq 0,\;(u_0, v_0) \in X \] (with the right side denoting the solution to (1) (2) (3) at time \(t)\) defines a dynamical system on \(X\), and this dynamical system possesses a global attractor \(A\) in \(X\). A possible extension of the results to situations with more general nonlinearities \(f\) and \(g\) and to other boundary conditions is discussed.