Global existence of weak solutions for the nonlocal energy-weighted reaction-diffusion equations (Q1990405)

The authors introduce and study the non-local energy-weighted reaction-diffusion equation \[ u_t = -E_\varepsilon^M(u) \nabla_X E_\varepsilon(u) \] where \[ E_\varepsilon(u) =\int_\Omega \left[\frac{\varepsilon |\nabla u|^2}{2}+\frac{W(u)}{\varepsilon}\right]\,dx \] for some double-well potential \(W\), \[ E_\varepsilon^M(u) = \min(E_\varepsilon(u), M) \] and \(\nabla_X\) is the gradient in \(X=L^2(\Omega)\). By intricately adapting the Galerkin method to this modified reaction-diffusion setting, the authors show that there exists a weak solution \(u\in L^2(0,T,H_0^1(\Omega))\) for any initial conditions \(u_0\in H_0^1(\Omega)\) if Neumann boundary conditions are imposed at \(\partial \Omega\) and if \(\|f\|_{C^0}<\infty\) and \(\|f\|_{C^1}<\infty\) for \(f(u)=W'(u)\).