English

Front Location for Go or Grow Models of Aerotaxis

Analysis of PDEs 2026-03-31 v1

Abstract

We investigate the pushed-to-pulled transition for a minimal model for invasive fronts influence by ``aerotaxis,'' that is, when organisms follow oxygen gradients. We consider two singular reaction-advection-diffusion models for this. The version of primary interest arises as a hydrodynamic limit of a system of branching, rank-based interacting Brownian particles and features a nonlinear, nonlocal advection. The second version is introduced here as a local counterpart. We establish well-posedness for both models, with the local case requiring a novel use of the ``shape defect function.'' We further characterize the front location up to O(1)O(1) precision in all cases, including the delicate boundary ``pushmi-pullyu'' case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.28663,
  title  = {Front Location for Go or Grow Models of Aerotaxis},
  author = {Mete Demircigil and Christopher Henderson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.28663},
  year   = {2026}
}