Existence of and decay to equilibrium of the filament end density along the leading edge of the lamellipodium (Q504069)

This article is concerned with the derivation and analysis of a submodel of the filament based lamellipodium model describing branching and capping of filaments along the leading edge of the lamellipodium. With $\alpha$ denoting the quotient of branching and capping rates and $c(x)\in(\underline{c},\overline{c})$ being the position-dependent speed, the densities $u$ and $v$ of right- and left-pointing filament ends are governed by the equations \[ \begin{aligned} u_t + \partial_x (c(x)u) &= \frac{\alpha v}{1+u+v} - u\\ v_t - \partial_x (c(x)v) &= \frac{\alpha u}{1+u+v} - v \end{aligned} \] in $[0,1]\times(0,\infty)$, with either periodic or Dirichlet boundary conditions and nonnegative initial data $(u_0,v_0)$. \par Global existence and uniqueness of a mild solution and positivity (unless $u_0\equiv 0 \equiv v_0$) are shown. If, moreover, $\alpha\in[0,1)$, solutions decay to zero. For large values of $\alpha$, the existence of and exponential convergence of solutions to nontrivial steady states $(\bar u,\bar v)$ are investigated based on the Lyapunov functional \[ \int_0^1 c\left(\frac{\bar v}{\bar u} (u-\bar u)^2 + \frac{\bar u}{\bar v} (v-\bar v)^2 \right) dx. \] The article also contains a discussion of the biological interpretation of model and results.