Parabolic Perturbation of a Nonlinear Hyperbolic Problem Arising in Physiology

We study a transport-diffusion initial value problem where the diffusion codlicient is "small" and the transport coefficient is a time function depending on the solution in a nonlinear and nonlocal way. We show the existence and the uniqueness of a weak solution of this problem. Moreover we discuss its asymptotic behaviour as the diffusion coefficient goes to zero, obtaining a well-posed first-order nonlinear hyperbolic problem. These problems arise from mathematical models of muscle contraction in the framework of the sliding filament theory.