Energy levels of steady states for thin-film-type equations (Q1614749)

The authors study the phase space of the evolution equation \[ h_t=-(f(h)h_{xxx})_x-(g(h)h_x)_x \] by means of dissipative energy. This is a one-dimensional version of \(h_t=-\nabla\cdot (f(h)\nabla\Delta h)-\nabla\cdot (g(h)\nabla h)\), which has been used to model the dynamics of a thin film of viscous liquid. Here, \(h(x,t)\geq 0\), and at \(h=0\) the coefficient functions \(f>0\) and \(g\) can either degenerate to \(0\), or blow up to \(\infty\), or tend to a nonzero constant. It is shown that all positive periodic steady states are saddles in the energy landscape, with respect to zero mean perturbations, if \((g/f)''\geq 0\) or if the perturbations are allowed to have a period longer than that of the steady state. For power-law coefficients \((f(y)=y^n\) and \(g(y)={\mathcal B}y^m\) for some \({\mathcal B}>0\)), the relative energy levels of distinct steady states are analytically determined. For instance, with \(m-n\in[1, 2)\) and for suitable choice of the mean value, three fundamentally different steady states are found. The first is a constant steady state that is stable and is a local minimum of the energy. The second is a positive periodic steady state that is linearly unstable and has higher energy than the constant steady state, it is a saddle point for the energy. The third is a periodic collection of `droplet' (compactly supported) steady states having lower energy than either the positive steady state or the constant one. Since the energy must decrease along every orbit, these results significantly constrain the dynamics of the evolution equation.