Weak solutions to 3-D Cahn-Hilliard system in elastic solids (Q1022821)

The paper is concerned with the existence and regularity of weak solutions to a three-dimensional Cahn-Hilliard system coupled with nonstationary elasticity. Such system arises as a model of phase separation in a binary deformable alloy quenched below a critical temperature. The considered problem has the form \[ \begin{aligned} &\mathbf{u}_{tt}-\nabla\cdot W_{,\varepsilon}(\varepsilon(\mathbf{u}),\chi)=\mathbf{b}\;\text{in}\;\Omega^T=\Omega\times (0,T),\\ &\mathbf{u}|_{t=0}=\mathbf{u}_0,\;\mathbf{u}_t|_{t=0}=\mathbf{u}_1 \;\text{in}\;\Omega,\;\mathbf{u}=\mathbf{0}\;\text{in}\;S^T=S\times(0,T),\\ &\chi_t-\nabla\cdot \mathbf{M}\nabla\mu=0\;\text{in}\;\Omega^T,\;\chi|_{t=0}=\chi_0\;\text{in}\;\Omega,\;\mathbf{n}\cdot\mathbf{M}\nabla \mu=0\;\text{on}\;S^T,\\ &\mu=-\nabla\cdot\mathbf{\Gamma}\nabla\xi+\psi'(\xi)+W_{,\chi}(\varepsilon(\mathbf{u},\xi) \;\text{in}\;\Omega^T,\;\mathbf{n}\cdot\mathbf{\Gamma}\nabla\xi=0\;\text{on}\;S^T, \end{aligned} \] where \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^3\) is a bounded domain with a smooth boundary \(S,\;\mathbf{n}\) is the unit outward normal to \(S\) and \(T>0\) is an arbitrary fixed time. The body is a binary \(a-b\) alloy. The unknowns are the fields \(\mathbf{u},\;\xi,\;\mu\) expressing the displacement vector, the phase ratio and chemical potential.