2006/08/01 by Pierre-Henri Chavanis · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Biology #Chemotaxis #Classical mechanics #Ecosystem dynamics and resilience #Gene Regulatory Network Analysis #Homogeneous #Inertial frame of reference #Instability #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Mechanics #Perturbation (astronomy) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Statistical physics #physics.bio-ph #q-bio.QM
paper · pdf · doi:10.1140/epjb/e2006-00310-y
published as Eur. Phys. J. B, 52, 433 (2006)
openalex publication_date 2006/08/01 · arxiv created 2008/10/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider an inertial model of chemotactic aggregation generalizing the Keller-Segel model and we study the linear dynamical stability of an infinite and homogeneous distribution of cells (bacteria, amoebae, endothelial cells,...) when inertial effects are accounted for. These inertial terms model cells directional persistance. We determine the condition of instability and the growth rate of the perturbation as a function of the cell density and the wavelength of the perturbation. We discuss the differences between overdamped (Keller-Segel) and inertial models. Finally, we show the analogy between the instability criterion for biological populations and the Jeans instability criterion in astrophysics.