Existence of weak solutions for the kinetic models of motion of myxobacteria with alignment and reversals

Abstract: In this paper, we consider three non-linear kinetic partial differential equations that emerge in the modeling of motion of rod-shaped cells such as myxobacteria. This motion is characterized by nematic alignment with neighboring cells, orientation reversals from cell polarity switching, orientation diffusion, and transport driven by chemotaxis. Our primary contribution lies in establishing the existence of weak solutions for these equations. Our analytical approach is based on the application of the classical averaging lemma from the kinetic theory, augmented by a novel version where the transport operator is substituted with a uni-directional diffusion operator.