A necessary and sufficient condition for global existence for a quasilinear reaction-diffusion system (Q2575982)

Summary: We show that the reaction-diffusion system \(u_t= \Delta\varphi(u)+ f(v)\), \(v_t= \Delta\psi(v)+ g(u)\), with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, has a positive global solution on \(\Omega\times [0,\infty)\) if and only if \(\int^\infty ds/f(F^{-1}(G(s)))= \infty\) (or, equivalently, \(\int^\infty ds/g(G^{-1}(F(s)))= \infty\)), where \(F(s)= \int^s_0 f(r)\,dr\) and \(G(s)= \int^s_0 g(r)\,dr\). The domain \(\Omega\subseteq\mathbb{R}^N\) \((N\geq 1)\) is bounded with smooth boundary. The functions \(\varphi\), \(\psi\), \(f\), and \(g\) are nondecreasing, nonnegative \(C([0,\infty))\) functions satisfying \(\varphi(s)\psi(s) f(s)g(s)> 0\) for \(s> 0\) and \(\varphi(0)= \psi(0)= 0\). Applied to the special case \(f(s)= s^p\) and \(g(s)= s^q\), \(p> 0\), \(q> 0\), our result proves that the system has a global solution if and only if \(pq\leq 1\).