Abstract
This paper establishes the global existence of solutions to a chemotaxis system with indirect signal production in the whole two-dimensional space. This system exhibits a mass threshold phenomenon governed by a critical mass , where represents the decay rate of the static individuals. When the total initial mass , all solutions exist globally and remain bounded. In the critical case of , the global existence or finite-time blow-up may occur depending on the initial conditions. The critical mass obtained in the whole space coincides with that previously derived in radially symmetric bounded domains. A key novelty lies in extending the analysis to the full plane, where the absence of compactness is overcome by constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional and employing refined Trudinger–Moser-type inequalities.
MSC:
35B35; 35B34; 35B44; 35K55; 92C17
1. Introduction
In this paper, we shall consider the Cauchy problem with respect to the following Parabolic–Parabolic–ODE chemotaxis model (1) () with indirect signal production
where the constant is positive and the initial function is nonnegative. Here , and denote the moving individuals’ density, the concentration of chemoattractant, and the static individuals’ density, respectively.
Several studies [1,2,3] have proposed chemotaxis models to characterize the spatial–temporal dynamics of mountain pine beetle populations, which significantly impact North America’s forestry sector. These models quantify the interactions between three key variables: (1) the population density u of flying beetles, (2) the population density v of nesting beetles, and (3) the concentration w of beetle pheromones (chemoattractants). The models distinguish between two behavioral states: flying beetles exhibit random spatial movement with pheromone-mediated directional bias, while nesting beetles remain stationary. Flying beetles u migrate toward regions of higher pheromone concentration w, with the signal being mediated by the nesting beetles v. A critical model feature is that pheromone production originates exclusively from nesting beetles, but it only influences the movement of flying beetles. This mechanistic difference fundamentally distinguishes these models from classical Keller–Segel systems [4,5,6,7], where the chemotactic agent is both produced by and acts upon the same population. As demonstrated in subsequent analysis, this distinction leads to markedly different population dynamics, particularly in two-dimensional space.
The chemotaxis system with indirect signal production has been studied in a bounded domain under the Neumann boundary condition. For a Parabolic–Parabolic–ODE system with indirect signal production,
If the -equation in (2) is replaced by , Tao and Winkler [8] obtained a novel critical mass phenomenon and showed that the solution blows up in finite time once m exceeds the critical mass, where . In particular, Lautençot [1] showed that any solution of (2) remains bounded for . Moreover, if is a ball, then the solutions of (2) exist globally for .
If , Osaki and Yasgi [2] obtained the global existence and convergence behavior of solutions to the 1D Keller–Segel model with generalized sensitivity function by constructing an attractor set, and this result was subsequently improved in [9]. If the -equation in (2) is replaced by , Mao and Li [10] established that, for any prescribed mass , there exist radially symmetric positive initial data with the given mass such that the corresponding solutions exhibit finite-time blow-up. Nagai [11] revealed that nonradial solutions developed singularities within finite time, provided the initial data’s mass and second moment obey certain quantitative conditions. The enhancements can be attributed to the powerful parabolic smoothing effect resulting from indirect attractant production. Similar beneficial effects on solution boundedness were noted by Chen et al. [12,13] in certain indirect chemotaxis–aptotaxis and rotation models. [14,15] have investigated taxis-driven aggregation phenomena, particularly focusing on the spontaneous formation of high-density regions during intermediate transitions induced by substantial phenotype switching rates. Considering the singularity formation, Tao and Winkler [16] studied a Jger–Luckhaus-type model, and they proved finite-time blow-up for radial solutions in dimensions .
In the whole space , Calvez [17] established the global existence of solutions of (1) with under the conditions that , and . In [18], the analysis relaxed previous auxiliary conditions, and they obtained a global existence solution if . This critical threshold arises naturally from the underlying Brezis–Merle inequality in the proof framework. Subsequently, studies in [19,20] showed that solutions with exhibit finite-time blow-up. Furthermore, Mizoguchi [21] employed the Trudinger–Moser inequality to establish the global existence of solutions without additional conditions. Furthermore, this analysis was extended to the critical case where under suitable regularity conditions on the initial data , thereby generalizing the earlier results of Calvez [17]. Xiang and Yang [22] considered parabolic–elliptic–ODE systems with indirect signal production, in the radially symmetric setting, which obtained uniform boundedness for , while the solutions may blow up with .
In [1], by constructing the Lyapunov functional
and employing the Trudinger–Moser inequality, Laurençot deduced the critical mass that sharply separates solutions exhibiting global boundedness from those undergoing finite-time blow up. Similarly to [1], we will obtain the global existence of solutions in a two-dimensional setting by constructing the Lyapunov functional
We note that the functional is not actually independent of v, and the v-terms are implicitly expressed through w due to the relationship established by the w-equation. Specifically, v has been replaced or reformulated in terms of w to simplify the expression or to highlight a particular structure in the problem.
Here, we choose over to simplify the estimates: for , the latter become negative and would require extra handling in the inequalities, whereas is always non-negative and keeps the desired coefficient positive.
Our proof employs the Trudinger–Moser inequality, which inherently requires domains of finite Lebesgue measure and thus cannot be directly applied to . We address this limitation through an innovative approach, which is analogous to Mizoguchi [21]. Building on prior results on [22], we note that the solutions globally exist in time, with , and that in the radially symmetric setting, the results could be improved to . Now, we can conclude that global existence is guaranteed for all solutions with , and finite-time blow-up occurs for certain solutions with .
Here, to simplify the notation, we denote throughout the paper. Throughout this paper, we consider weak solutions to the system (1), that is, functions satisfying the equations in the sense of integral identities, with appropriate regularity and integrability conditions specified in the function spaces . Now, we can state the main theorems as follows:
Theorem 1.
Let . If ; then the solution of (1) exists globally in time.
For a solution developing a singularity at time T, a spatial point is designated as a blow-up point if fails to remain locally bounded when . The collection of all such points constitutes the blow-up set. The solution exhibits complete blow-up when its blow-up set coincides with the entire plane .
Theorem 2.
Let . If , then the solution of (1) either exists globally or exhibits finite-time blow-up in .
2. Proof of Theorem 1
As shown in [18] (Proposition 4.1), the first result requires no additional proof, while the second emerges as a variation on the established Cauchy–Neumann problem in the bounded domain.
Proposition 1.
Let . Let be a solution to (1) defined on with . For all , the following holds:
(i) and
(ii) Let be defined in (5). Then,
Let be the Lebesgue measure of . By [23,24]; we recall the following inequality.
Proposition 2.
Let be a finite-measure domain. There exists a constant , independent of D, such that for , we have
namely,
The following was proved in [25] Lemma 5.4.
Proposition 3.
Let . For nonnegative integrable functions f and h, we obtain
where .
Lemma 1.
Let . Let be a solution to (1) defined on with . For initial data satisfying , there exist positive constants and such that
for all .
Proof.
Due to , we can select parameters that are sufficiently small and that are sufficiently large to ensure that
Let
and
By applying Proposition 1(i), we obtain
Therefore, we infer
and hence
from Proposition 1(i), we deduce that
If , then the conclusion of this lemma follows immediately. For with , the set can be decomposed into at most countably many pairwise disjoint domains , that is, with , where is a connected and open domain for and if . Letting and in Proposition 3, we deduce
for , where . From Proposition 2, we infer
Hence, we conclude that
for since
Let . It can be inferred that
since
Making use of and (17), we obtain
Hence, we infer from the above inequalities that
Consequently, we deduce
By the choice of , s, we have
This completes the proof. □
Lemma 2.
Proof.
Similarly, there exists a such that
for . This entails
for all . Therefore, we obtain
for . Set
For sufficiently large s, then since . It follows from (57) that
which entails that
by Proposition 1(ii). Therefore, we infer
Consequently there exist some , such that
We can complete the proof. □
The following holds in [18] Proposition 5.1.
Proposition 4.
Let . Let be any solution to (1) defined on with . Assume that there are positive constants C and σ such that
for all ; thus, there exists a positive constant such that
Now we start to prove Theorem 1.
Proof of Theorem 1.
In contrast, there is a solution of (1) satisfying the hypotheses that blows up in finite time T. From Lemma 2, we have positive constants with
for . Consequently, by applying Proposition 4, we obtain , satisfying
□
Using standard parabolic regularity arguments shows remains bounded at , contradicting our assumption.
3. The Critical Case m(u0; R2) = 8πδ
Lemma 3.
Let fulfill . Consider a solution of (1) with blow-up time . If the blow-up set of is a proper subset of , then there exist positive constants and for which
where .
Proof.
Since does not blow up in the plane, there exists a point and such that
where denotes a ball with radius r centered as b for and . Using the parabolic regularity theory, there exists a constant such that exists for . Since u is positive in , we conclude that for by the maximum principle. Hence there exist such that
We can choose that are sufficiently small and large such that
Similar to the steps (13)–(17) in Lemma 1, we use (44) and (17) to infer that
for . Setting , we get
namely,
for . Let
From Proposition 1(i), we deduce
If , then the conclusion of this lemma follows immediately. For for which , arguing as in (23), we derive that
Hence we infer from the above inequalities that
Hence this implies
This completes the proof. □
Lemma 4.
Let fulfill . Consider a solution of (1) with blow-up time . If the blow-up set of is a proper subset of , then there exist positive constants and for which
for .
Proof.
Similarly, there exists a such that
for . This entails
for all . Therefore, we obtain
for . Set
For sufficiently large s, then since . It follows from (57) that
and thus
by Proposition 1(ii). Therefore we infer
We can complete the proof. □
Proof of Theorem 2.
Suppose, for contradiction, that as a solution of (1) blows up at a finite time T. Then, Lemma 4 provides positive constants with
for all . Then, by applying Proposition 4, we obtain the positive constant satisfying
□
Using standard parabolic regularity arguments, we conclude that remains bounded at , contradicting our assumption. We complete the proof of Theorem 2.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, D.L.; methodology, D.L.; validation, D.L.; formal analysis, Q.L.; investigation, D.L.; writing—original draft preparation, Q.L. and D.L.; writing—review and editing, Q.L. and D.L.; visualization, Q.L.; supervision, D.L.; project administration, Q.L.; funding acquisition, Q.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was funded by the NSF of China (No. 12201416 and No. 12001201) and the NSF of Sichuan Province (No. 2025ZNSFSC0815).
Data Availability Statement
The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article. Further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Tian Xiang and Changjiang Zhu for their kind encouragement.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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