Global existence of solutions to the 4D attraction–repulsion chemotaxis system and applications of Brezis–Merle inequality

Abstract We consider the Cauchy problem for an attraction–repulsion chemotaxis system in the four space dimension. One of main topics in the study of such a system is the presence of L 1 threshold. In fact, the critical mass phenomenon called 8 π -problem is well-known in the two-dimensional setting. In this paper, we show the global existence of solutions to the Cauchy problem for the four-dimensional subcritical case, that is, the total mass of the initial data is less than the four-dimensional L 1 threshold value ( 8 π ) 2 . The key ingredients are the four-dimensional Brezis–Merle type inequality of the 4th-order elliptic equation and some inequalities derived from rearrangement arguments.