On a three-dimensional quasilinear Keller-Segel-Stokes system with indirect signal production (Q2678890)

In this paper, the author consider the effect of the indirect signal production mechanism on global boundedness of solutions for the Keller-Segel-Stokes system \[ \begin{alignedat}{2} & n_t+\mathbf{u}\cdot\nabla n=\nabla\cdot(D(n)\nabla n-S(n)\nabla c), \quad & \text{ in }&\Omega\times(0,\infty), \\ & c_t+\mathbf{u}\cdot\nabla c=\Delta c-c+v, \quad & \text{ in }&\Omega\times(0,\infty), \\ & v_t+\mathbf{u}\cdot\nabla v=\Delta v-v+n, \quad & \text{ in }&\Omega\times(0,\infty), \\ & \mathbf{u}_t= \Delta\mathbf{u}+\nabla P+n\nabla\phi, \quad & \text{ in }&\Omega\times(0,\infty), \\ & \nabla\cdot\mathbf{u}=0, \quad & \text{ in }&\Omega\times(0,\infty), \end{alignedat} \] in a smoothly bounded domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^3\) under zero-flux boundary conditions for \(n\), \(c\), \(v\) and no-slip boundary conditions for \(\mathbf{u}\), where \(D(n)\) and \(S(n)\) denote the nonlinear diffusion and sensitivity, respectively, \(\mathbf{u}\) represents the velocity of the fluid, \(P\) is the pressure within the fluid, and \(\phi\) is the gravitational potential. With the novel conditional estimates on \(\nabla c\) and \(\mathbf{u}\), it is proved that for all appropriately regular nonnegative initial data, this model has a globally bounded classical solution provided that the functions \(D, S\in C^2([0,\infty))\) satisfy \(D(n) \ge K_1(n + 1)^{-m}\) and \(S(n)\le K_2n(n + 1)^{\alpha-1}\) with \(K_1, K_2 > 0\) and \(\alpha + m < 8/9\) , which improves the previous subcritical exponent \(\alpha+m < 2/3\) in the direct signaling Keller-Segel-Stokes system by [\textit{M. Winkler}, Appl. Math. Lett. 112, Article ID 106785, 7 p. (2021; Zbl 1453.35115)]. It is shown that the indirect signal production mechanism can be beneficial to the global boundedness of solutions for the three-dimensional quasilinear Keller-Segel-Stokes system.