Sharp interface limit of a multi-phase transitions model under nonisothermal conditions (Q2048711)

The authors consider the vectorial Modica-Mortola functionals \[ F_{\varepsilon} (u) := \int_{\Omega} \left[ \frac{1}{\varepsilon} \, W (x, u(x)) + \varepsilon \, | \nabla u (x)|^2 \right] dx \] with \(u \in H^1 (\Omega ; \mathbb{R}^M)\), \(\Omega\) a bounded open set of \(\mathbb{R}^N\) with Lipschitz boundary, \(M \geqslant 1\), \(W : \Omega \times \mathbb{R}^M \to [0, +\infty)\) is locally Lipschitz and \(W (x, p) = 0\) if and only if \(p \in \{z_1 (x), \ldots z_k (x) \}\) where \(z_i : \Omega \to\mathbb{R}^M\) are given Lipschitz functions, and study their \(\Gamma\)-convergence. \\ The novelty lies just in the fact that the authors consider the vectorial case (when \(M \geqslant 2\)) and that the wells of the potential are not constant, but may depend on \(x\).\\ The \(\Gamma\)-limit functional is defined (is finite) in the space \[ BV (\Omega; z_1, \ldots z_k) := \left\{ u \in BV (\Omega; \mathbb{R}^M) \, \big| \, u(x) \in \{ z_1 (x) , \ldots z_k (x) \} \text{ a.e.} \right\} \, . \]