The classical one-phase Stefan problem: a catalog of interface behaviors

The Stefan problem refers to physical processes for which the location of the boundary is not known in advance (as the melting of a piece of ice in water). For such problems, besides finding space-time distributions of some quantities, the determination of the boundary (interface) is a part of the problem. The classical Stefan problem is described by the following set of equations for the temperature distribution \(T=T(x,t)\): \[ \partial_tT=\Delta T\;\text{ for}\;x\in{\mathbb R}^N\setminus \Omega(t),\;t>0, \] \[ T=0\;\text{ and}\;v_n=-\partial_n T\;\text{ for}\;x\in\partial\Omega(t),\;t>0. \] Here, \(\Omega(t)\) is the phase domain (ice region) at the \(t\) with the boundary \(\partial\Omega(t)\) a priori unknown for \(t>0\). Instead of considering \(T(x,t)\), the paper deals with the quantity \(u=u(x,t)\) related to \(T(x,t)\) by Baiocchi transformation. This quantity satisfies semilinear parabolic equation \[ \partial_t u-\Delta u+H(u)=0\;\text{ for}\;x\in{\mathbb R}^N,\;H(u) - \text{ Heaviside\;function}, \] together with the condition \(\partial_t u\geq 0\) in \({\mathbb R}^N\setminus \Omega(t)\) (expressing the fact that the interface never recedes). The authors first survey various particular solutions that illustrate and indicate general aspects of the problem in question. Then they investigate the asymptotic behavior of solutions near smooth boundary points. They also investigate the stable singular behavior (preserved under small perturbation), some unstable singularities (shrinking domains, cusp formation), and finally, the smoothing of interfaces after singularity formation.

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