The spreading of global solutions of chemotaxis systems with logistic source and consumption on $\mathbb{R}^{N}$

Abstract

This paper investigates the spreading properties of globally defined bounded positive solutions of a chemotaxis system featuring a logistic source and consumption: \[ \left\{ \begin{aligned} &\partial_tu=\Delta u - \chi\nabla\cdot(u\nabla v)+ u(a-bu),\quad &(t,x)\in [0,\infty)\times\mathbb{R}^N, \\ &{\tau \partial_tv}=\Delta v-uv,\quad & (t,x)\in [0,\infty)\times\mathbb{R}^N, \end{aligned} \right. \] where $u(t,x)$ represents the population density of a biological species, and $v(t,x)$ denotes the density of a chemical substance. Key findings of this study include: (i) the species spreads at least at the speed $c^*=2\sqrt a$ (equalling the speed when $v\equiv 0$), suggesting that the chemical substance does not hinder the spreading; (ii) the chemical substance does not induce infinitely fast spreading of $u$; (iii) the spreading speed remains unaffected under conditions that $v(0,\cdot)$ decays spatially or $0<-\chi\ll 1$ and $\tau=1$. Additionally, our numerical simulations reveal a noteworthy phase transition in $\chi$: for $v(0, \cdot)$ uniformly distributed across space, the spreading speed accelerates only when $\chi$ surpasses a critical positive value.