The Willmore functional and instabilities in the Cahn-Hilliard equation (Q936489)

The authors consider the Neumann problem for the Cahn-Hilliard equation \[ \begin{cases} u_t= \Delta (-\varepsilon^2\Delta u + \frac{1}{2}(u^3 - u)), &(x, t)\in\Omega\times {\mathbb R}_+,\\ \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}=\frac{\partial}{\partial n}(\varepsilon^2\Delta u - \frac{1}{2} (u^3 - u)), &(x,t)\in\partial\Omega\times {\mathbb R}_+\end{cases} \tag \(*\) \] with \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^d\) a bounded domain, \(d=1\) or 2, \(0 <\varepsilon <<1\). The so-called transition solution is a special type of stationary solution of Eq. \((*)\). For example if \(d=1\), the so-called Kink solution \(u_0=\tanh \frac{x}{2\varepsilon}\) is such a stationary solution of the Cahn-Hilliard equation, \(\Omega=(-1, 1)\). The Willmore functional of the Cahn-Hilliard Eq. \((*)\) is given by \[ W(u)=\frac{1}{4\varepsilon}\int_{\Omega}\left(\varepsilon\Delta u - \frac{1}{2}(u^3 - u)\right)^2 \,dx. \] The main goal of this paper is to show that the Willmore functional locally decreases or increases in time in the linearly stable or unstable case respectively. The authors perform numerical solutions in one and two dimensions and show that the neighbourhood of transition solutions local instabilities occur in finite time.