A variational approach to the quasistatic limit of viscous dynamic evolutions in finite dimension (Q2323828)

This paper is concerned with a variational analysis of the limit behavior of the system which describes the evolution of a mechanical system taking into account the inertia and the friction in the form \[{{\varepsilon }^{2}}A{{\ddot{u}}_{\varepsilon }}(t)+\varepsilon B{{\dot{u}}_{\varepsilon }}(t)+{{\nabla }_{x}}F(t,{{u}_{\varepsilon }}(t))=0\] where \(A\) and \(B\) are positive definite and symmetric matrices and \(F\) a time-depending driving potential, as the small parameter \(\varepsilon \to 0\). By applying a general variational approach the authors establish that the solutions of the singularly perturbed problem converge to a curve of stationary points of the energy and characterize the behavior of the limit evolution at jump times. At those times, the left and right limits of the evolution are connected by a finite number of heteroclinic solutions to the unscaled equation.