Finite time blowup for Keller-Segel equation with logistic damping in three dimensions

Abstract: The Keller-Segel equation, a classical chemotaxis model, and many of its variants have been extensively studied for decades. In this work, we focus on 3D Keller-Segel equation with a quadratic logistic damping term $-\mu \rho^2$ (modeling density-dependent mortality rate) and show the existence of finite-time blowup solutions with nonnegative density and finite mass for any $\mu \in \big[0,\frac{1}{3}\big)$. This range of $\mu$ is sharp; for $\mu \ge \frac{1}{3}$, the logistic damping effect suppresses the blowup as shown in [Kang-Stevens, 2016] and [Tello-Winkler, 2007]. A key ingredient is to construct a self-similar blowup solution to a related aggregation equation as an approximate solution, with subcritical scaling relative to the original model. Based on this construction, we employ a robust weighted $L^2$ method to prove the stability of this approximate solution, where modulation ODEs are introduced to enforce local vanishing conditions for the perturbation lying in a singular-weighted $L^2$ space. As a byproduct, we exhibit a new family of type I blowup mechanisms for the classical 3D Keller-Segel equation.