Existence of weak solutions to a diffuse interface model involving magnetic fluids with unmatched densities (Q6039676)

The present paper is concerned with the existence of weak solutions of the Cauchy problem for the incompressible bi-fluid model \[\begin{cases} \partial_t(\rho\mathbf{v})+ \nabla\cdot(\mathbf{v}\otimes (\rho\mathbf{v}+\mathbf{J}))- \nabla\cdot(2\nu(\phi)\mathsf{D}( \mathbf{v})) +\nabla p =\mu\nabla\phi - \mathbf{E}_\mathrm{mag}\nabla\mathbf{M}\\ \nabla\cdot \mathbf{v} =0\\ \partial_t\mathbf{M}+(\mathbf{v} \cdot\nabla)\mathbf{M}= \mathbf{E}_\mathrm{mag}\\ \partial_t\phi+\mathbf{v} \cdot\nabla\phi= \triangle\mu\\ \mu =- \eta\triangle\phi+\Psi'(\phi) +\xi'(\phi)|\nabla\mathbf{M}|^2/2 +\alpha^{-2} \xi'(\phi)(|\mathbf{M}|^2-1)^2/4, \end{cases}\] in \(Q_T=\Omega\times ]0,T[\), where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain of \(\mathbb{R}^d\) (\(d=2,3\)) of class \(C^2\), accomplished by the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition for the mean fluid velocity field \(\mathbf{v}\) and the Neumann boundary conditions for the 3D magnetization \(\mathbf{M}\), the phase field \(\phi \), and the chemical potential \(\mu\). Here, \( p \) and \( \mathsf{D} \) stand for the pressure and the symmetric part of the velocity gradient, respectively, and \(\alpha\) and \(\eta\) are positive constants. The functions \(\nu,\xi \in C^1(\mathbb{R})\) stand for the viscosity and the exchange parameter that reflects the tendency of the magnetization to align in one direction. The mean mass density \(\rho\) is such that \(\rho(\phi) = (1/2)(\widetilde\rho_1+\widetilde\rho_2)+ (1/2) (\widetilde\rho_2-\widetilde\rho_1)\phi\) in \(\overline{Q}_T\), where \(\widetilde\rho_1,\widetilde\rho_2 >0\) are specific constant mass densities of the unmixed fluids. A relative flux related to the diffusion of the components is \(\mathbf{J}= - (\widetilde\rho_2-\widetilde\rho_1)\nabla \mu/2\), the magnetic contribution \(\mathbf{E}_\mathrm{mag}= \nabla\cdot(\xi(\phi)\nabla\mathbf{M})-\alpha^{-2} \xi(\phi) (|\mathbf{M}|^2-1)\mathbf{M}\) stands for the exchange energy contribution plus a penalization term punishing the derivation of \(|\mathbf{M}|\) from one, and \(\Psi\in C([-1,1]) \cap C^2(]-1,1[)\) denotes the homogeneous free energy density of the fluid mixture. The physical background and the derivation of the model are commented. Under some assumptions on the data, the authors prove the existence of a solution in the spaces \[\begin{aligned} \mathbf{v}&\in C_w([0,T]; L^2_\mathrm{div}(\Omega))\cap L^2(0,T;H^1_{0,\mathrm{div}}(\Omega)) \\ \mathbf{M}&\in C_w([0,T]; H^1(\Omega))\cap C([0,T]; L^2(\Omega))\cap H^1(0,T;L^{3/2}(\Omega)) \\ \phi &\in C_w([0,T]; H^1(\Omega))\cap C([0,T]; L^2(\Omega))\cap L^2(0,T;W^{2,1}(\Omega)) \\ \Psi'(\phi)&\in L^1(Q_T) \\ \mu &\in L^2(0,T; H^1(\Omega)) \end{aligned}\] and also the improved regularity, for \(p>2\), \[\begin{aligned} \mathbf{M}&\in L^2(0,T;W^{1,p}(\Omega)) \\ \phi &\in L^2(0,T;W^{2,2p/(p+2)}(\Omega)) \\ \Psi'(\phi) &\in L^2(0,T; L^{2p/(p+2)}(\Omega)). \end{aligned}\] To this aim, the problem is firstly reformulated to a discrete time system, using the subdifferential of the convex potential \(\Psi\). The existence of a solution to the time discretization system relies on the Leray-Schauder fixed point principle. The required quadruple \((\mathbf{v},\mathbf{M},\phi,\mu)\) is obtained as the limit of some piecewise constant interpolants, which proof relies on determining suitable uniform estimates and compactness.