Nonlinear diffusion in type-II superconductors (Q2483319)

This paper studies a nonlinear equation with appropriate initial and boundary conditions. This problem is an approximation of the Bean critical state model for type-II superconductors defining the evolution of the electric field in a conductive medium under the influence of a force. The considered problem admits a unique weak solution. The process of electromagnetic field penetration in type-II superconductors is the process of nonlinear diffusion. The mathematical model is based on the quasi-static Maxwell equations. Then, owing to the idea of using nonlinear diffusion equations for the description of the flux creep, and due to actual resistive transitions could be described by the power law, it is obtained the Bean critical-state model. The author lets the nonlinearity under the time derivative and designs a time discrete nonlinear approximation scheme. The theory of monotonic operators is applied to guarantee the existence of a weak solution at any time step of a time partitioning. Then, some energy a priori estimates are proved for the approximation in suitable function spaces. The stability result is stated necessary for compensated compactness in the proof of convergence. Then, it is proved convergence of approximate solution to a weak solution of the original problem. First, the Murat argument of compensated compactness for steady-state problems to a transient case is generalized, and following, it is used the method of Minty-Browder employing the monotonicity to justify passing to weak limits within a nonlinearity. Finally, the error estimates for the approximation scheme are derived on the base of the variational techniques for porous media equations.