A well-balanced scheme for chemotactic travelling waves at the mesoscopic scale

Abstract: We investigate numerically a model consisting in a kinetic equation for the biased motion of bacteria following a run-and-tumble process, coupled with two reaction-diffusion equations for chemical signals. This model exhibits asymptotic propagation at a constant speed. In particular, it admits travelling wave solutions. To capture this propagation, we propose a well-balanced numerical scheme based on Case's elementary solutions for the kinetic equation, and L-splines for the parabolic equations. We use this scheme to explore the Cauchy problem for various parameters. Some examples far from the diffusive regime lead to the coexistence of two waves travelling at different speeds. Numerical tests support the hypothesis that they are both locally asymptotically stable. Interestingly, the exploration of the bifurcation diagram raises counter-intuitive features.