On a chemotaxis model with degenerate diffusion: Initial shrinking, eventual smoothness and expanding

Abstract

We investigate the propagating profiles of a degenerate chemotaxis model describing the bacteria chemotaxis and consumption of oxygen by aerobic bacteria, in particular, the effect of the initial attractant distribution on bacterial clustering. We prove that the compact support of solutions may shrink if the signal concentration satisfies a special structure, and show the finite speed propagating property without assuming the special structure on attractant concentration, and obtain an explicit formula of the population spreading speed in terms of model parameters. The presented results suggest that bacterial cluster formation can be affected by chemotactic attractants and density-dependent dispersal.