Global existence of solutions to the Cauchy problem of a two dimensional attraction-repulsion chemotaxis system (Q2215475)

The paper considers the attraction-repulsion chemotaxis system \[ \begin{cases} u_t-\Delta u=-\nabla\cdot(\chi u\nabla v)+\nabla\cdot(\xi u\nabla w),\\ v_t+\beta v-\Delta v=\alpha u,\\ \delta w-\Delta w=\gamma u, \quad x\in \mathbb{R}^2,\ \, t>0,\\ u(x,0)=u_0(x),\quad v(x,0)=v_0(x) ,\quad x\in \mathbb{R}^2. \end{cases}\tag{EQ} \] Here \(u\) denotes the cell density, \(v\) denotes the chemoattractant density and \(w\) denotes the chmorepellent density. The positive numbers \(\chi,\xi,\alpha,\beta,\gamma,\delta\) describe various biological parameters involved. The main result of the paper is, that if one of the following two constraints hold, a) \(\chi \alpha-\xi\gamma\leq 0\); b) \(\chi\alpha-\xi \gamma>0\) and \(||u_0||_{L^1}<\frac{8\pi}{\chi\alpha-\xi \gamma}\), then the system (EQ) has a unique global smooth solution. The main difficulty in the analysis comes from the fact that the Lyapunov functional constructed by [\textit{H.-Y. Jin} and \textit{Z.-A. Wang}, J. Differ. Equations 260, No. 1, 162--196 (2016; Zbl 1323.35001)] to handle the bounded domain case is not effective on the whole plane. To overcome this difficulty, the authors constructed a modified free energy functional \begin{multline*} \mathcal{E}(u,v,w)= \\ \int_{\mathbb{R}^2}(1+u)\ln(1+u) dx+\frac{\chi}{2\alpha}\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}(\beta v^2+|\nabla v|^2)dx+\frac{\xi}{2\gamma}\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}(\delta w^2+|\nabla w|^2)dx-\chi\int_{\mathbb{R}^2}uv dx. \end{multline*} By carefully analyzing the differential inequalities involving \(\mathcal{E}\), the authors are able to derive a-priori bounds and apply the Moser-Alikakos iteration to complete the argument.