Quasilinear parabolic and elliptic systems with mixed quasimonotone functions (Q2434363)

The authors consider two systems of quasilinear parabolic equations (and the related elliptic systems). The first system has the form \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} \frac{\partial u_i}{\partial t}-\nabla \cdot \left(a_i\;D_i(u_i)\nabla u_i\right)+b_{i}^{*}\cdot \left(D_{i}(u_i)\nabla u_{i}\right) &=f_{i}(t,x,u)&\quad & i=1,\dots,N, \\ u_{i}(t,x)&=h_{i}(t,x)&\quad & i=1,\dots,n_{0}-1 \\ D_i(u_i)\frac{\partial u_{i}}{\partial \nu}&=g_{i}(t,x,u)&\quad & i=n_0,\dots,N, \\ u_{i}(0,x)&=\psi_{i}(x)&\quad & i=1,\dots,N \end{alignedat} \] in a bounded domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{n}\) with boundary \(\partial \Omega\) and outward normal derivative \(\partial/\partial \nu\) on \(\partial \Omega\). The second system is the coupled system of equations \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} \frac{\partial u_i}{\partial t}-\nabla \cdot \left(a_i\;D_i(u_i)\nabla u_i\right)+b_{i}^{*}\cdot \left(D_{i}(u_i)\nabla u_{i}\right)&=f_{i}(t,x,u)&\quad &i=1,\dots,n_1, \\ \frac{\partial u_{i}}{\partial t}&=f_{i}(t,x,u)&\quad &i=n_{1}+1,\dots,N, \\ u_{i}(t,x)&=h_{i}(t,x)&\quad &i=1,\dots,n_{0}-1, \\ D_i(u_i)\frac{\partial u_{i}}{\partial \nu}&=g_{i}(t,x,u)&\quad &i=n_0,\dots,N, \\ u_{i}(0,x)&=\psi_{i}(x)&\quad &i=1,\dots,N.\end{alignedat} \] In Section 2, the existence and uniqueness of classical solutions for these systems is established using the method of upper and lower solutions for mixed quasimonotone functions \(f(t,x,u)\), \(g(t,x,u)\). In Section 3, the authors investigate the existence of solutions for the quasilinear elliptic system associated to the first problem, obtaining maximal and minimal quasisolutions under some assumptions (among them, that the functions \(f(x,u)\) and \(g(x,u)\) are quasimonotone nondecreasing in the second variable). The result is extended to the steady-state counterpart for the second system. In the following section, under additional hypotheses, it is shown, under the assumption of quasimonotone nondecreasing functions \(f(\cdot,u)\) and \(g(\cdot,u)\), that the sector between the maximal and the minimal solutions is a global attractor for the first system. The one-sided asymptotic stability of the maximal and minimal solutions is also proved in this case. In the case of mixed quasimonotone functions, the authors show that the sector between the quasisolutions is a global attractor of the time-dependent system. These results are shown to also hold for the second system and its corresponding elliptic system. In the final Section 5, the authors provide some applications: an extended porous medium logistic-reaction-diffusion model, a degenerate predator-prey model and a two-prey one-predator model. In all applications, the associated steady-state problems are also considered.