Incompressible limit of a mechanical model for tissue growth with non-overlapping constraint

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Abstract

A mathematical model for tissue growth is considered. This model describes the dynamics of the density of cells due to pressure forces and proliferation. It is known that such cell population model converges at the incompressible limit towards a Hele-Shaw type free boundary problem. The novelty of this work is to impose a non-overlapping constraint. This constraint is important to be satisfied in many applications. One way to guarantee this non-overlapping constraint is to choose a singular pressure law. The aim of this paper is to prove that, although the pressure law has a singularity, the incompressible limit leads to the same Hele-Shaw free boundary problem.