Positivity-preserving, energy stable numerical schemes for the Cahn-Hilliard equation with logarithmic potential

We present and analyze finite difference numerical schemes for the Allen Cahn/Cahn-Hilliard equation with a logarithmic Flory Huggins energy potential. Both the first order and second order accurate temporal algorithms are considered. In the first order scheme, we treat the nonlinear logarithmic terms and the surface diffusion term implicitly, and update the linear expansive term and the mobility explicitly. We provide a theoretical justification that, this numerical algorithm has a unique solution such that the positivity is always preserved for the logarithmic arguments. In particular, our analysis reveals a subtle fact: the singular nature of the logarithmic term around the values of $-1$ and 1 prevents the numerical solution reaching these singular values, so that the numerical scheme is always well-defined as long as the numerical solution stays similarly bounded at the previous time step. Furthermore, an unconditional energy stability of the numerical scheme is derived, without any restriction for the time step size. The unique solvability and the positivity-preserving property for the second order scheme are proved using similar ideas, in which the singular nature of the logarithmic term plays an essential role. For both the first and second order accurate schemes, we are able to derive an optimal rate convergence analysis, which gives the full order error estimate. The case with a non-constant mobility is analyzed as well. We also describe a practical and efficient multigrid solver for the proposed numerical schemes, and present some numerical results, which demonstrate the robustness of the numerical schemes

An unconditionally energy stable finite difference scheme for a stochastic Cahn-Hilliard equation

In this work, the MMC-TDGL equation, a stochastic Cahn-Hilliard equation is solved numerically by using the finite difference method in combination with a convex splitting technique of the energy functional. For the non-stochastic case, we develop an unconditionally energy stable difference scheme which is proved to be uniquely solvable. For the stochastic case, by adopting the same splitting of the energy functional, we construct a similar and uniquely solvable difference scheme with the discretized stochastic term. The resulted schemes are nonlinear and solved by Newton iteration. For the long time simulation, an adaptive time stepping strategy is developed based on both first- and second-order derivatives of the energy. Numerical experiments are carried out to verify the energy stability, the efficiency of the adaptive time stepping and the effect of the stochastic term.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in SCIENCE CHINA Mathematic

Fast and Stable Schemes for Phase Fields Models

We propose and analyse new stabilized time marching schemes for Phase Fields model such as Allen-Cahn and Cahn-Hillard equations, when discretized in space with high order finite differences compact schemes. The stabilization applies to semi-implicit schemes for which the linear part is simplified using sparse pre-conditioners. The new methods allow to significant obtain a gain of CPU time. The numerical illustrations we give concern applications on pattern dynamics and on image processing (inpainting, segmentation) in two and three dimension cases

Well-posedness and longtime behavior for the modified phase-field crystal equation

We consider a modification of the so-called phase-field crystal (PFC) equation introduced by K.R. Elder et al. This variant has recently been proposed by P. Stefanovic et al. to distinguish between elastic relaxation and diffusion time scales. It consists of adding an inertial term (i.e. a second-order time derivative) into the PFC equation. The mathematical analysis of the resulting equation is more challenging with respect to the PFC equation, even at the well-posedness level. Moreover, its solutions do not regularize in finite time as in the case of PFC equation. Here we analyze the modified PFC (MPFC) equation endowed with periodic boundary conditions. We first prove the existence and uniqueness of a solution with initial data in a bounded energy space. This solution satisfies some uniform dissipative estimates which allow us to study the global longtime behavior of the corresponding dynamical system. In particular, we establish the existence of an exponential attractor. Then we demonstrate that any trajectory originating from the bounded energy phase space does converge to a unique equilibrium. This is done by means of a suitable version of the {\L}ojasiewicz-Simon inequality. A convergence rate estimate is also given

Well-posedness and long-time behavior of a non-autonomous Cahn-Hilliard-Darcy system with mass source modeling tumor growth

In this paper, we study an initial boundary value problem of the Cahn-Hilliard-Darcy system with a non-autonomous mass source term $S$ that models tumor growth. We first prove the existence of global weak solutions as well as the existence of unique local strong solutions in both 2D and 3D. Then we investigate the qualitative behavior of solutions in details when the spatial dimension is two. More precisely, we prove that the strong solution exists globally and it defines a closed dynamical process. Then we establish the existence of a minimal pullback attractor for translated bounded mass source $S$. Finally, when $S$ is assumed to be asymptotically autonomous, we demonstrate that any global weak/strong solution converges to a single steady state as $t\to+\infty$. An estimate on the convergence rate is also given