The conserved Penrose-Fife system with temperature-dependent memory. (Q1414181)

The existence and uniqueness of a weak solution to a conserved phase-field model of Penrose-Fife type for phase transitions are established. The model couples a fourth-order variational inequality for the order parameter \(\chi\) and a second-order quasilinear parabolic equation with a memory term for the absolute temperature \(\vartheta>0\) and reads \[ \begin{aligned}\partial_t(\vartheta+\ell\chi) + \Delta (\vartheta^{-1} - k*\vartheta) & = g,\\ \partial_t - \Delta w & = 0,\\ -\Delta\chi + \beta(\chi) + \sigma'(\chi) + \ell\vartheta^{-1} & \ni w\end{aligned} \] for \((t,x)\in (0,+\infty)\times\Omega\), where \(\Omega\) is a smooth bounded domain of \({\mathbb R}^N\), \(1\leq N\leq 3\) and \(k*\vartheta\) denotes the convolution with respect to time: \[ k*\vartheta(t,x) = \int_0^t k(t-s)\;\vartheta(s,x)\,ds. \] As for the data, \(\beta\) is a maximal monotone graph, \(\sigma'\) is a Lipschitz continuous function, \(\ell\) is a non-zero real number and the memory kernel \(k\) belongs to \(W_{\text{loc}}^{2,1}(0,+\infty)\) and satisfies \(k(0)>0\). This system is supplemented with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions for \(\chi\) and \(\Delta\chi\) and third type boundary conditions for \(\vartheta\), the latter being needed to recover some coercivity on \(\vartheta^{-1}\).