How far can chemotactic cross-diffusion enforce exceeding carrying capacities? (Q484458)

The influence of the chemotactic drift term on the range of solutions is investigated for the following parabolic-elliptic chemotaxis with logistic growth: \[ \begin{aligned} \partial_t u & = \varepsilon \partial_x^2 u - \partial_x ( u \partial_x v) + r u - \mu u^2, \quad x \in (0,L), \quad t>0, \\ 0 & = \partial_x^2 v - v + u, \quad x \in (0,L), \quad t>0,\end{aligned} \] supplemented with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions and a non-negative initial condition \(u_0\in W^{1,q}(0,L)\) for some \(q>1\). Here \(L\) and \(\mu\) are positive parameters while \(\varepsilon\) and \(r\) are non-negative real numbers. Without the chemotactic drift term \(- \partial_x ( u \partial_x v)\), the above equation for \(u\) reduces to the classical KPP-Fisher equation and it is well-known that its solutions are bounded by \(\max\{ r/\mu , \|u_0\|_\infty\}\). Such a bound is far from remaining true for the chemotaxis system, at least for \(\mu\in (0,1)\). It is shown herein that, if \(u_0\) is sufficiently large, there is \(T>0\) with the following property: given an arbitrary \(M>0\), the solution \(u\) attains values higher than \(M\) in \((0,L)\times (0,T)\) for sufficiently small values of \(\varepsilon\). The proof of this result relies on a detailed study of the above chemotaxis system without diffusion, i.e. \(\varepsilon=0\). In that case, well-posedness in \(W^{1,q}(0,L)\), \(q>1\), is established and solutions are global if \(\mu\geq 1\). When \(\mu\in (0,1)\), finite time blowup in \(L^\infty(0,L)\) takes place and this phenomenon persists in a weaker form for small values of \(\varepsilon\) as mentioned above.