Global existence and uniqueness for a singular/degenerate Cahn-Hilliard system with viscosity (Q393030)

In this paper, the authors consider a nonstandard phase-field model which can be understood as a variant of the classic Cahn-Hilliard system for diffusion-driven phase segregation by atom rearrangement. The model of interest is an initial-value parabolic system of two PDEs with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, where the unknowns are the order parameter and the chemical potential. The authors discuss in detail the physical features of the phase-segregation model and they give a justification for it. The starting point for the existence proof is an approximating problem based on a time-delay in the right-hand side of the appropriate subproblem for the order parameter given in a strong form. They show that the approximate problem has a (unique) solution. The next step in the existence proof is passing to the limit in the approximation parameter. The proof presented in this article uses compactness arguments and thus relies on a number of a priori estimates, uniform with respect to the approximation parameter. Moreover, the authors prove some regularity results as well. Finally, in the case of constant atom mobility, an interesting and nonstandard uniqueness result is given.