Global existence for a class of reaction-diffusion systems with mass action kinetics and concentration-dependent diffusivities (Q499736)

The existence of classical, global in time solutions for reaction-diffusion systems with quadratic growth of nonlinearities and Neumann boundary conditions is studied. In particular, the so-called Rothe system with variable coefficients is considered in space domains of dimension \(\leq 5\); moreover, networks of elementary reactions, and finally the quasilinear case of diffusivities \(\Delta D_i(c_i)\) with more general nonlinearities in dimensions \(\leq 3\) are studied. These models require moderate concentrations of chemicals, i.e., they are no longer valid for large concentrations. Therefore, the question whether these models have the intrinsic structure to prevent solutions from blowing up is a natural one. The paper does not employ entropy-like Lyapunov functionals and, hence, also applies to irreversible limits. Instead, initially an a priori estimate in \(L^p\) is proved, and then a bootstrap procedure is employed.