On stable critical points for a singular perturbation problem (Q812189)

The paper is concerned with the energy functional \(E_\varepsilon(u)=\int_\Omega ({\varepsilon\over 2}| \nabla u| ^2+{W(u)\over\varepsilon})\) modeling phase separation within the van der Waals-Cahn-Hilliard theory. Here \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n\) is a bounded domain, \(W\) is a double well potential, \(u\in H^1(\Omega)\). A critical point \(u^\varepsilon\) of \(E_\varepsilon\) is said to be stable if the second variation \(E''_\varepsilon(u^\varepsilon)\) is non-negative. Given a sequence \(u^{\varepsilon_i}\) of stable critical points, \(\varepsilon_i\to 0\), with \(E_{\varepsilon_i}(u^{\varepsilon_i})\) and \(\sup_\Omega| u^{\varepsilon_i}| \) uniformly bounded, \textit{J. E. Hutchinson} and the author [Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 10, 49--84 (2000; Zbl 1070.49026)] characterized the limit interface \(V\) as a stationary integral varifold. In the present paper the author shows that \(V\) has an \(L^2\)-generalized second fundamental form and is a generalized stable minimal hypersurface. He also shows that \(V\) satisfies an inequality due to Schoen for stable minimal hypersurfaces. Finally, if \(n=2\) it is proved that \(V\) consists of finitely many line segments which do not intersect. Concepts and proofs are based on geometric measure theory.