Triple-junction motion for an Allen-Cahn/Cahn-Hilliard system (Q1969872)

The Allen-Cahn/Cahn-Hilliard system has been derived by \textit{J. W. Cahn} and \textit{A. Novick-Cohen} as an interface model for simultaneous ordering and phase separation [J. Stat. Phys. 76, No. 3-4, 877-909 (1994; Zbl 0840.35110)]. In this paper, Novick-Cohen considers a long time formal asymptotics of the system in a setting appropriate primarily to the Krzanowski instability, but possibly also to grain boundary growing of polycrystalline films or sintering of small grains. For simplicity, the detailed analysis of the motion is described here in the planar case. It is shown that the limiting behavior couples the motion by mean curvature for the antiphase boundaries with the motion by minus the Laplacian of the interphase boundaries on the same time scale. Meanwhile, at triple-junctions the lowest order is determined by Young's law, a mass flux balance and a condition on the sum of mean curvatures due to the continuity of the chemical potential. In determining the angles formed by the interfaces at possible triple-junctions, it is of interest the way the energy surface is analyzed through the geodesics of an associated energy-weighted Riemannian metric.