The critical mass constraint in the Cahn-Hilliard equation (Q998752)

The paper studies the Cahn-Hilliard equation in two dimensions in a situation when the mass constraint is lowered to the order of \(\varepsilon^{2/3},\) where \(\varepsilon\) is the interface thickness parameter. In this case the existence of droplet solutions becomes conditional. It is shown that for interior single droplet solutions there is a critical value for the mass constraint such that above this value two interior single droplet solutions exist, and below this value interior single droplet solutions can not be constructed. One solution has smaller droplet radius than the other one. Moreover, the one with smaller radius is less stable than the one with larger radius. A critical mass constraint appears also when multiple droplet solutions are sought. Above the critical mass constraint, which now depends on the number of droplets, there exist two multi-droplet solutions. In each solution the radii of the droplets are about the same. However when the two solutions are compared, one has larger droplet radius than the other one does. The locations of the droplets are determined by the solution of a disc packing problem.