Rigorous fast signal diffusion limit and convergence rates with the initial layer effect in a competitive chemotaxis system

Abstract

We study a chemotaxis system that includes two competitive prey and one predator species in a two-dimensional domain, where the movement of prey (resp. predators) is driven by chemicals secreted by predators (resp. prey), called mutually repulsive (resp. mutually attractive) chemotactic effect. The kinetics for all species are chosen according to the competitive Lotka--Volterra equations for prey and to a Holling type functional response for the predator. Under the biologically relevant scenario that the chemicals diffuse much faster than the individual diffusion of all species and a suitable re-scaling, equations for chemical concentrations are parabolic with slow evolution depending on the relaxation time $0<\varepsilon\ll 1$. The first main result shows the global existence of a unique classical solution to the system for each $\varepsilon$. Second, we study rigorously the so-called fast signal diffusion limit, passing from the system including parabolic equations with the slow evolution of the chemical concentrations to elliptic equations for the chemical concentrations, i.e. the limit as $\varepsilon \to 0$. This explains why elliptic equations can be proposed for chemical concentration instead of parabolic ones with slow evolution. Third, the $L^\infty$-in-time convergence rates for the fast signal diffusion limit are estimated, where the effect of the initial layer is carefully treated. Finally, the differences between the systems with and without the slow evolution, and between the systems with one or two prey, as well as their dynamics, are discussed numerically.