Bounded solutions and their asymptotics for a doubly nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard system

Singular perturbations in context of PDEs (35B25) Asymptotic behavior of solutions to PDEs (35B40) Strong solutions to PDEs (35D35) Initial-boundary value problems for nonlinear higher-order PDEs (35G31) Initial-boundary value problems for higher-order parabolic systems (35K52) Dynamics of phase boundaries in solids (74N20) Transformations involving diffusion in solids (74N25)

Abstract: In this paper we deal with a doubly nonlinear Cahn-Hilliard system, where both an internal constraint on the time derivative of the concentration and a potential for the concentration are introduced. The definition of the chemical potential includes two regularizations: a viscosity and a diffusive term. First of all, we prove existence and uniqueness of a bounded solution to the system using a nonstandard maximum-principle argument for time-discretizations of doubly nonlinear equations. Possibly including singular potentials, this novel result brings improvements over previous approaches to this problem. Secondly, under suitable assumptions on the data, we show the convergence of solutions to the respective limit problems once either of the two regularization parameters vanishes.

Review text

The authors consider a bounded and smooth domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{3}\) and the modified Cahn-Hilliard problem \(\partial _{t}u-\Delta \mu =0\), \(\mu \in \varepsilon \partial _{t}u+\beta (\partial _{t}u)-\delta \Delta u+\psi ^{\prime }(u)+g\) in \(\Omega \times (0,T)\). The boundary conditions \(\partial _{n}u=0\), \(\mu =0\) are imposed on \(\partial \Omega \times (0,T)\), and \(u\) starts from an initial condition \(u_{0}\in \{v\in H^{2}(\Omega):\partial _{n}v=0\) on \(\partial \Omega \}\) at \(t=0\). Here \(\varepsilon \) and \(\delta \) are positive parameters, \(\beta \) is a maximal monotone graph, \(\psi ^{\prime }\) is the derivative of a possibly non-convex potential \(\psi \in C^{2}(a,b)\), with \(-\infty \leq a < b\leq +\infty \), which satisfies \(\psi(r)\geq 0\) on \((a,b)\), \(\lim_{r\rightarrow a^{+}}\psi ^{\prime }(r)=-\infty \), \(\lim_{r\rightarrow b^{-}}\psi ^{\prime }(r)=+\infty \), \(\psi ^{\prime \prime}(r)>-K\) on \((a,b)\), and \(g\in H^{1}(0,T;L^{2}(\Omega ))\cap L^{\infty}(\Omega \times (0,T))\) is a forcing term. The main purpose of the paper is to describe the asymptotic behavior of the solution when \(\varepsilon \) or \(\delta \) go to 0. The authors first prove the existence of a unique weak solution \((u_{\varepsilon \delta },\mu _{\varepsilon \delta },\xi_{\varepsilon \delta })\) to this problem with \(\xi _{\varepsilon \delta }\in\beta (\partial _{t}u_{\varepsilon \delta })\). They here extend a previous existence result they proved in [Commun. Pure Appl. Anal. 17, No. 3, 1001--1022 (2018; Zbl 1393.35235)]. They prove that this solution continuously depends on the data \(u_{0}\) and \(g\). The first convergence result is obtained when considering \(\delta >0\) fixed and letting \(\varepsilon \rightarrow 0\).\ Under some hypotheses on the data, the authors prove that the solution \((u_{\varepsilon \delta },\mu _{\varepsilon \delta},\xi _{\varepsilon \delta })\) converges, up to some subsequence and in some weak sense, to a weak solution \((u,\mu ,\xi )\) of the problem \(\partial_{t}u(t)-\Delta \mu (t)=0\), \(\mu (t)=\xi (t)-\delta \Delta u(t)+\psi^{\prime }(u(t))+g(t)\), for a.e. \(t\in (0,T)\), \(\xi \in \beta (\partial_{t}u)\) a.e. in \(\Omega \times (0,T)\), with the initial condition \(u(0)=u_{0}\). Taking now \(\varepsilon >0\) fixed and assuming further hypotheses on the data, the authors prove that the solution \((u_{\varepsilon \delta },\mu_{\varepsilon \delta },\xi _{\varepsilon \delta })\) converges, up to some subsequence and in some weak sense, to a weak solution \((u,\mu ,\xi )\) of the problem \(\partial _{t}u(t)-\Delta \mu (t)=0\), \(\mu (t)=\varepsilon\partial _{t}u(t)+\xi (t)+\psi ^{\prime }(u(t))+g(t)\), for a.e. \(t\in (0,T)\), \(\xi \in \beta (\partial _{t}u)\) a.e. in \(\Omega \times (0,T)\), with the initial condition \(u(0)=u_{0}\). For the proof of the existence result, the authors introduce an approximate problem replacing the source term \(g\) by a smooth function \(g_{\lambda }\) and introducing a regularizing term in the second equation of the problem. They then prove uniform estimates on the solution of this approximate solution which allow to pass to the limit when \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\). For the proof of the convergence results, the authors introduce the Yosida approximation of the maximal monotone graph and they derive estimates.

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