Global existence and boundedness in a Keller-Segel-Stokes system involving a tensor-valued sensitivity with saturation (Q499550)

Existence and uniqueness of a global classical solution \((n,c,\boldsymbol{u})\) are shown for a chemotaxis-fluid model featuring a matrix-valued chemotactic sensitivity. It reads \[ \begin{aligned} \partial_t n + \boldsymbol{u}\cdot \nabla n &=\operatorname{div}(\nabla n-n\mathcal{S}(x,n,c) \nabla c), \quad (x,t)\in \Omega\times (0,\infty), \\ \partial_t c + \boldsymbol{u}\cdot \nabla c &=\Delta c - c + n, \quad (x,t)\in \Omega\times (0,\infty), \\ \partial_t \boldsymbol{u} + \nabla P &=\Delta\boldsymbol{u} + n \nabla\phi, \quad (x,t)\in \Omega\times (0,\infty), \\ \operatorname{div}\boldsymbol{u} &=0, \quad (x,t)\in \Omega\times (0,\infty),\end{aligned} \] supplemented with no flux boundary conditions \[ (\nabla n - n \mathcal{S}(x,n,c) \nabla c)\cdot \boldsymbol{n} = \nabla c \cdot \boldsymbol{n} = 0, \qquad \boldsymbol{u} = 0, \quad (x,t)\in \partial\Omega\times (0,\infty), \] and initial conditions. Here, \(\Omega\) is a smooth open bounded subset of \(\mathbb R^2\) and the sensitivity matrix \(\mathcal{S} = (\mathcal{S}_{ij})_{1\leq i, j\leq 2}\) belongs to \(C^2(\bar{\Omega}\times [0,\infty)\times [0,\infty))\) and satisfies the decay condition \(|\mathcal{S}(x,n,c)| \leq C_\mathcal{S} (1+n)^{-\alpha}\) for some \(\alpha>0\) and \(C_\mathcal{S}>0\). Also, the potential \(\phi\) belongs to \(C^2(\bar{\Omega})\) and the initial conditions are assumed to be sufficiently smooth. It is further shown that \(\{n(t)\}_{t\geq 0}\) is bounded in \(L^\infty(\Omega)\) while \(\{c(t)\}_{t\geq 0}\) and \(\{\boldsymbol{u}(t)\}_{t\geq 0}\) are bounded in \(W^{1,\infty}(\Omega)\). The proof relies on the control of \(t\mapsto \| n(t)\|_p^p + \|\nabla c(t)\|_{2q}^{2q}\) for sufficiently large \(p\) and \(q\) and this control is achieved with the help of a nonlinear interpolation inequality involving derivatives of \(c\) up to order 2. The growth assumption on \(\mathcal{S}\) and the restriction to dimension 2 are also crucial for this step.