DRIFT-DIFFUSION LIMITS OF KINETIC MODELS FOR CHEMOTAXIS: A GENERALIZATION

Abstract

We study a kinetic model for chemotaxis introduced by Othmer, Dunbar, and Alt [23], which was motivated by earlier results of Alt, presented in [1], [2]. In two papers by Chalub, Markowich, Perthame and Schmeiser, it was rigorously shown that, in three dimensions, this kinetic model leads to the classical Keller-Segel model as its drift-diffusion limit when the equation of the chemo-attractant is of elliptic type [4], [5]. As an extension of these works we prove that such kinetic models have a macroscopic diffusion limit in both two and three dimensions also when the equation of the chemo-attractant is of parabolic type, which is the original version of the chemotaxis model.