Metastable patterns for a reaction-diffusion model with mean curvature-type diffusion (Q2208263)

The authors study the reaction-diffusion equation \[ u_t=Q(\varepsilon^2u_x)_x-F'(u) \quad \text{in \((a,b)\times (0,\infty)\)} \] with the initial-boundary condition \(\left. u\right\vert_{t=0}=u_0(x)\), \( \left. u_x\right\vert_{x=a,b}=0\), where \(F\in C^3(\mathbb{R})\) is a double well potential with wells of equal depth: \[ F(\pm 1)=F'(\pm 1)=0, \quad F''(\pm 1)>0, \quad F(u)>0 , \ \forall u\neq \pm 1, \] and \(Q\) is the mean curvature operator, either \[ Q(s)=\frac{s}{\sqrt{1+s^2}} \] or \[ Q(s)=\frac{s}{\sqrt{1-s^2}}. \] It is assumed that the initial value \(u_0=u_0^\varepsilon\) approaches to a piecewise constant function \(v:[a,b]\rightarrow \{ +1, -1\}\) in \(L^1\) as \(\varepsilon\rightarrow 0\) under an appropriate upper bound of the energy \(E_\varepsilon[u_0^\varepsilon]\) using \(N+\exp(-A/\varepsilon)\), where \(N\) is the number of jumps of \(v\), \(A>0\) is a constant bounded above by the minimum length of the interval for \(v\) to be constant, and \[ E_\varepsilon[u]=\int_a^b\left[ \frac{\tilde Q(\varepsilon^2u_x)}{\varepsilon^2}+F(u)\right] dx, \quad \tilde Q'=Q. \] Then the solution \(u^\varepsilon=u^\varepsilon(\cdot,t)\) converges to \(v\) in \(L^1\) uniformly in \(t\in (0, m\exp(A/\varepsilon))\) for any \(m>0\).