Threshold of global behavior of solutions to a degenerate drift-diffusion system in between two critical exponents (Q2347180)

The authors study weak solutions to the degenerate Keller-Segel system \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} u_t &= \Delta u^\alpha - \nabla \cdot ( u \nabla v ), &\quad (x,t) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty), \\ - \Delta v &= u, &\quad (x,t) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty), \end{alignedat} \] with appropriate nonnegative initial data \(u_0 \in L^1(\mathbb{R}^n) \cap L^\alpha (\mathbb{R}^n)\). Moreover, it is assumed that \(n \geq 3\) and \(\alpha \in (\alpha_\ast, \alpha^\ast)\), where \(\alpha_\ast := 2- 4/(n+2)\) and \(\alpha^\ast := 2- 2/n\) are the Sobolev and \(L^1\) critical exponents, respectively. For \(\alpha \in (\alpha_\ast, \alpha^\ast)\), the authors prove the existence of a threshold value \(C_\alpha >0\) such that the weak solution \((u,v)\) exists globally in time if \(\|u_0\|_{L^1}^\beta \|u_0\|_{L^\alpha}^\gamma\) is below \(C_\alpha\), while it blows up in finite time if the same quantity is above \(C_\alpha\). The threshold \(C_\alpha\) is given in terms of the best possible constant in a modified Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality, while \(\beta\) and \(\gamma\) are positive constants depending on \(\alpha\). This result extends results known for the critical cases \(\alpha = \alpha_\ast\) and \(\alpha = \alpha^\ast\) and the proof relies in particular on the modified Hardy-Littlewood-Sobolev inequality and an appropriate entropy. In addition, the authors prove an optimal decay estimate for global solutions with small initial data.