On cross-diffusion systems for two populations subject to a common congestion effect (Q2187337)

Let \(\Omega\) be a convex and relatively compact open subset of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) with smooth boundary and \(|\Omega|>2\) and consider two potentials \(V_i\in W^{1,\infty}(\Omega)\), \(i=1,2\). Existence of global weak solutions is proved for the system \begin{align*} \partial_t \rho_1 - \mathrm{div}\left( \nabla\rho_1 + \rho_1 \left( \nabla V_1 + \nabla p \right) \right)=0\text{ in }(0,\infty)\times \Omega\,, \\ \partial_t \rho_2 - \mathrm{div}\left( \nabla\rho_2 + \rho_2 \left( \nabla V_2 + \nabla p \right) \right)=0\text{ in }(0,\infty)\times \Omega\,, \end{align*} supplemented with constraints \[ p\ge 0\,, \qquad \rho_1+\rho_2 \le 1\,, \] along with no flux boundary conditions and initial conditions \((\rho_{1,0},\rho_{2,0})\in \mathcal{P}^{ac}(\Omega;\mathbb{R}^2)\) (that is, probability measures on \(\Omega\) which are absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure) satisfying \(\rho_{1,0},\rho_{2,0}\le 1\) a.e. in \(\Omega\). In addition, when \(m\ge 1\), existence of global weak solutions is also established for the system \begin{align*} \partial_t \rho_1 - \mathrm{div}\left( \nabla\rho_1 + \rho_1 \left( \nabla V_1 + \frac{m}{m-1} \nabla [(\rho_1+\rho_2)^{m-1}] \right) \right)=0\text{ in }(0,\infty)\times \Omega\,, \\ \partial_t \rho_2 - \mathrm{div}\left( \nabla\rho_2 + \rho_2 \left( \nabla V_2 + \frac{m}{m-1} \nabla [(\rho_1+\rho_2)^{m-1}] \right) \right)=0\text{ in }(0,\infty)\times \Omega\,,\end{align*} supplemented with no flux boundary conditions and initial conditions \((\rho_{1,0},\rho_{2,0})\in \mathcal{P}^{ac}(\Omega;\mathbb{R}^2)\) (when \(m=1\), \(m(\rho_1+\rho_2)^{m-1}/(m-1)\) has to be replaced by \(\ln{(\rho_1+\rho_2)}\) as usual). In both cases, the proof relies on the underlying gradient flow structure with respect to the \(2\)-Wasserstein distance and makes use of the flow interchange technique to obtain the compactness estimates needed for the convergence of the variational scheme. The last section is devoted to the particular case \(\nabla V_1=\nabla V_2\), for which \(\rho=\rho_1+\rho_2\) solves a closed equation. Additional regularity on \(\rho\), including \(L^\infty\)-estimates, are derived. Numerical simulations are also provided.