Emergence of biological transportation networks as a self-regulated process

Abstract

We study self-regulating processes modeling biological transportation networks. Firstly, we write the formal $L^2$-gradient flow for the symmetric tensor valued diffusivity $D$ of a broad class of entropy dissipations associated with a purely diffusive model. The introduction of a prescribed electric potential leads to the Fokker-Planck equation, for whose entropy dissipations we also investigate the formal $L^2$-gradient flow. We derive an integral formula for the second variation of the dissipation functional, proving convexity (in dependence of diffusivity tensor) for a quadratic entropy density modeling Joule heating. Finally, we couple in the Poisson equation for the electric potential obtaining the Poisson-Nernst-Planck system. The formal gradient flow of the associated entropy loss functional is derived, giving an evolution equation for $D$ coupled with two auxiliary elliptic PDEs.