Existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behavior of the solutions to the fully parabolic Keller-Segel system in the plane (Q2250575)

A salient feature of non-negative and integrable solutions to the parabolic-elliptic Keller-Segel system in the plane \[ \partial_t u = \mathrm{div} \left( \nabla u - u \nabla v \right)\;, \quad 0 = \Delta v - \alpha v + u\;, \quad x\in \mathbb{R}^2\;, \quad t>0\;, \] is the existence of a threshold value of the \(L^1\)-norm \(\|u_0\|_1\) of the initial condition \(u_0\) for \(u\) which separates two different behaviours: if \(\|u_0\|_1<8\pi\) then solutions are global and behave in a self-similar way as \(t\to\infty\). If \(\|u_0\|_1>8\pi\) then solutions blow up in finite time. The above system being somehow a simplification of the parabolic-parabolic Keller-Segel system in the plane \[ \partial_t u = \mathrm{div} \left( \nabla u - u \nabla v \right)\;, \quad \varepsilon \partial_t v = \Delta v - \alpha v + u\;, \quad x\in \mathbb{R}^2\;, \quad t>0\;, \] corresponding to \(\varepsilon=0\), an interesting question is to figure out whether the dichotomy of behaviour described above is still valid for \(\varepsilon>0\) or the value of \(\varepsilon\) has an influence on the dynamics. As already observed in the literature the latter turns out to be true and the paper under review contributes to the understanding of this issue. More precisely, given initial conditions \(u_0\in L^1(\mathbb{R}^2)\) and \(v_0\in \dot{H}^1(\mathbb{R}^2)\), it is shown that there is \(\delta=\delta(\|u_0\|_1,\varepsilon)\) satisfying \(\delta(\|u_0\|_1,\varepsilon)\to\infty\) as \(\varepsilon\to 0\) such that the above system has a unique solution defined up to a maximal time \(T\in (0,\infty]\) provided that \(\|\nabla v_0\|_2<\delta\). Furthermore this solution is global if \(\|u_0\|_1\) is sufficiently small and, in that case, \(u(t)\) and \(\nabla v(t)\) decay algebraically in \(W^{1,p}(\mathbb{R}^2)\), \(p\in [1,\infty]\), and \(W^{1,r}(\mathbb{R}^2)\), \(r\in [2,\infty]\), respectively. When \(\alpha>0\) and the solution is global, its first component \(u\) is shown to behave as the fundamental solution with mass \(\|u_0\|_1\) of the heat equation as \(t\to\infty\). When \(\alpha=0\), it is known that there is \(M^*(\varepsilon)\geq 8\pi\) such that, for each \(M\in (0,M^*(\varepsilon))\), there is at least a self-similar solution \((u_M,v_M)\) satisfying \(\|u_M\|_1=M\). This result is supplemented herein by a uniqueness result valid for \(M\in (0,\widetilde{M}(\varepsilon))\) where \(\widetilde{M}(\varepsilon)\in [4\pi,8\pi]\) and \(\widetilde{M}(\varepsilon)=M^*(\varepsilon)=8\pi\) if \(\varepsilon\in (0,1/2]\). Convergence to self-similarity is then shown for global solutions when \(M\in (0,\widetilde{M}(\varepsilon))\) and for a sequence of times only if \(M\in [\widetilde{M}(\varepsilon),M^*(\varepsilon))\).