Decay to equilibrium for energy-reaction-diffusion systems

We derive thermodynamically consistent models of reaction-diffusion equations coupled to a heat equation. While the total energy is conserved, the total entropy serves as a driving functional such that the full coupled system is a gradient flow. The novelty of the approach is the Onsager structure, which is the dual form of a gradient system, and the formulation in terms of the densities and the internal energy. In these variables it is possible to assume that the entropy density is strictly concave such that there is a unique maximizer (thermodynamical equilibrium) given linear constraints on the total energy and suitable density constraints. We consider two particular systems of this type, namely, a diffusion-reaction bipolar energy transport system, and a drift-diffusion-reaction energy transport system with confining potential. We prove corresponding entropy-entropy production inequalities with explicitely calculable constants and establish the convergence to thermodynamical equilibrium, at first in entropy and further in $L^1$ using Cziszar-Kullback-Pinsker type inequalities.Comment: 40 page

Uniform exponential decay for reaction-diffusion systems with complex-balanced mass-action kinetics

We consider reaction-diffusion systems on a bounded domain with no-flux boundary conditions. All reactions are given by the mass-action law and are assumed to satisfy the complex-balance condition. In the case of a diagonal diffusion matrix, the relative entropy is a Liapunov functional. We give an elementary proof for the Liapunov property as well a few explicit examples for the condition of complex or detailed balancing.  We discuss three methods to obtain energy-dissipation estimates, which guarantee exponential decay of the relative entropy, all of which rely on the log-Sobolev estimate and suitable handling of the reaction terms as well as the mass-conservation relations. The three methods are (i) a convexification argument based on the author's joint work with Haskovec and Markowich, (ii) a series of analytical estimates derived by Desvillettes, Fellner, and Tang, and (iii) a compactness argument of developed by Glitzky and Hünlich

Convergence to self-similar profiles in reaction-diffusion systems

We study a reaction-diffusion system on the real line, where the reactions of the species are given by one reversible reaction according to the mass-action law. We describe different positive limits at both sides of infinity and investigate the long-time behavior. Rescaling space and time according to the parabolic scaling, we show that solutions converge exponentially to a constant profile. In the original variables these profiles correspond to asymptotically self-similar behavior describing the diffusive mixing or equilibration of the different states at infinity. Our method provides global exponential convergence for all initial states with finite relative entropy

Convergence to equilibrium in energy-reaction-diffusion systems using vector-valued functional inequalities

We discuss how the recently developed energy-dissipation methods for reactiondi usion systems can be generalized to the non-isothermal case. For this we use concave entropies in terms of the densities of the species and the internal energy, where the importance is that the equilibrium densities may depend on the internal energy. Using the log-Sobolev estimate and variants for lower-order entropies as well as estimates for the entropy production of the nonlinear reactions we give two methods to estimate the relative entropy by the total entropy production, namely a somewhat restrictive convexity method, which provides explicit decay rates, and a very general, but weaker compactness method

On two coupled degenerate parabolic equations motivated by thermodynamics

We discuss a system of two coupled parabolic equations that have degenerate diffusion constants depending on the energy-like variable. The dissipation of the velocity-like variable is fed as a source term into the energy equation leading to conservation of the total energy. The motivation of studying this system comes from Prandtl's and Kolmogorov's one and two-equation models for turbulence, where the energy-like variable is the mean turbulent kinetic energy. Because of the degeneracies there are solutions with time-dependent support like in the porous medium equation, which is contained in our system as a special case. The motion of the free boundary may be driven by either self-diffusion of the energy-like variable or by dissipation of the velocity-like variable. The cross-over of these two phenomena is exemplified for the associated planar traveling fronts. We provide existence of suitably defined weak and very weak solutions. After providing a thermodynamically motivated gradient structure we also establish convergence into steady state for bounded domains and provide a conjecture on the asymptotically self-similar behavior of the solutions in Rd for large times

Variational Methods for Evolution (hybrid meeting)

Variational principles for evolutionary systems take advantage of the rich toolbox provided by the theory of the calculus of variations. Such principles are available for Hamiltonian systems in classical mechanics, gradient flows for dissipative systems, but also time-incremental minimization techniques for more general evolutionary problems. The new challenges arise via the interplay of two or more functionals (e.g. a free energy and a dissipation potential), new structures (systems with nonlocal transport, gradient flows on graphs, kinetic equations, systems of equations) thus encompassing a large variety of applications in the modeling of materials and fluids, in biology, in multi-agent systems, and in data science. This workshop brought together a broad spectrum of researchers from calculus of variations, partial differential equations, metric geometry, and stochastics, as well as applied and computational scientists to discuss and exchange ideas. It focused on variational tools such as minimizing movement schemes, optimal transport, gradient flows, and large-deviation principles for time-continuous Markov processes, $\Gamma$-convergence and homogenization