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Conservative upwind finite-element method for a simplified Keller-Segel system modelling chemotaxis. (English) Zbl 1119.65094

Summary: Finite-element approximation for a non-linear parabolic-elliptic system is considered. The system describes the aggregation of slime moulds resulting from their chemotactic features and is called a simplified Keller-Segel system. Applying an upwind technique, first we present a finite-element scheme that satisfies both positivity and mass conservation properties. Consequently, if the triangulation is of acute type, our finite-element approximation preserves the \(L^1\) norm, which is an important property of the original system. Then, under some assumptions on the regularity of a solution and on the triangulation, we establish error estimates in \(L^p\times W^{1,\infty}\) with a suitable \(p>d\), where \(d\) is the dimension of a spatial domain. Our scheme is well suited for practical computations. Some numerical examples that validate our theoretical results are also presented.

MSC:

65M60 Finite element, Rayleigh-Ritz and Galerkin methods for initial value and initial-boundary value problems involving PDEs
65M15 Error bounds for initial value and initial-boundary value problems involving PDEs
35M10 PDEs of mixed type
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