Global existence of weak solutions to a nonlocal Cahn-Hilliard-Navier-Stokes system (Q640987)

The system consisting of the Navier-Stokes equations nonlinearly coupled with a convective Cahn-Hilliard type equation describes the evolution of an incompressible isothermal mixture of binary fluids. From the authors' abstract: ``Here we consider a variant of this model where the standard Cahn-Hilliard equation is replaced by its nonlocal version. More precisely, the gradient term in the free energy functional is replaced by a spatial convolution operator acting on the order parameter \(\varphi\), while the potential \(F\) may have any polynomial growth. Therefore the coupling with the Navier-Stokes equations is difficult to handle even in two spatial dimensions because of the lack of regularity of \(\varphi\). We establish the global existence of a weak solution. In the two-dimensional case we also prove that such a solution satisfies the energy identity and a dissipative estimate, provided that \(F\) fulfills a suitable coercivity condition.''