Global and exponential attractors for the Penrose-Fife system

The Penrose-Fife system for phase transitions is addressed. Dirichlet boundary conditions for the temperature are assumed. Existence of global and exponential attractors is proved. Differently from preceding contributions, here the energy balance equation is both singular at 0 and degenerate at infinity. For this reason, the dissipativity of the associated dynamical process is not trivial and has to be proved rather carefully

Attractors for the semiflow associated with a class of doubly nonlinear parabolic equations

A doubly nonlinear parabolic equation of the form $\alpha(u_t)-\Delta u+W'(u)= f$, complemented with initial and either Dirichlet or Neumann homogeneous boundary conditions, is addressed. The two nonlinearities are given by the maximal monotone function $\alpha$ and by the derivative $W'$ of a smooth but possibly nonconvex potential $W$; $f$ is a known source. After defining a proper notion of solution and recalling a related existence result, we show that from any initial datum emanates at least one solution which gains further regularity for $t>0$. Such "regularizing solutions" constitute a semiflow $S$ for which uniqueness is satisfied for strictly positive times and we can study long time behavior properties. In particular, we can prove existence of both global and exponential attractors and investigate the structure of $\omega$-limits of single trajectories

On a Navier-Stokes-Allen-Cahn model with inertial effects

A mathematical model describing the flow of two-phase fluids in a bounded container $\Omega$ is considered under the assumption that the phase transition process is influenced by inertial effects. The model couples a variant of the Navier-Stokes system for the velocity $u$ with an Allen-Cahn-type equation for the order parameter $\varphi$ relaxed in time in order to introduce inertia. The resulting model is characterized by second-order material derivatives which constitute the main difficulty in the mathematical analysis. Actually, in order to obtain a tractable problem, a viscous relaxation term is included in the phase equation. The mathematical results consist in existence of weak solutions in 3D and, under additional assumptions, existence and uniqueness of strong solutions in 2D. A partial characterization of the long-time behavior of solutions is also given and in particular some issues related to dissipation of energy are discussed.Comment: 24 page

On the viscous Cahn-Hilliard equation with singular potential and inertial term

We consider a relaxation of the viscous Cahn-Hilliard equation induced by the second-order inertial term~$u_{tt}$. The equation also contains a semilinear term $f(u)$ of "singular" type. Namely, the function $f$ is defined only on a bounded interval of ${\mathbb R}$ corresponding to the physically admissible values of the unknown $u$, and diverges as $u$ approaches the extrema of that interval. In view of its interaction with the inertial term $u_{tt}$, the term $f(u)$ is difficult to be treated mathematically. Based on an approach originally devised for the strongly damped wave equation, we propose a suitable concept of weak solution based on duality methods and prove an existence result.Comment: 11 page

Existence of solutions and separation from singularities for a class of fourth order degenerate parabolic equations

A nonlinear parabolic equation of the fourth order is analyzed. The equation is characterized by a mobility coefficient that degenerates at 0. Existence of at least one weak solution is proved by using a regularization procedure and deducing suitable a-priori estimates. If a viscosity term is added and additional conditions on the nonlinear terms are assumed, then it is proved that any weak solution becomes instantaneously strictly positive. This in particular implies uniqueness for strictly positive times and further time-regularization properties. The long-time behavior of the problem is also investigated and the existence of trajectory attractors and, under more restrictive conditions, of strong global attractors is shown

Well-posedness and long-time behavior for a class of doubly nonlinear equations

This paper addresses a doubly nonlinear parabolic inclusion of the form $A(u_t)+B(u)\ni f$. Existence of a solution is proved under suitable monotonicity, coercivity, and structure assumptions on the operators $A$ and $B$, which in particular are both supposed to be subdifferentials of functionals on $L^2(\Omega)$. Moreover, under additional hypotheses on $B$, uniqueness of the solution is proved. Finally, a characterization of $\omega$-limit sets of solutions is given and we investigate the convergence of trajectories to limit points

Singular limit of a transmission problem for the parabolic phase-field model

summary:A transmission problem describing the thermal interchange between two regions occupied by possibly different fluids, which may present phase transitions, is studied in the framework of the Caginalp-Fix phase field model. Dirichlet (or Neumann) and Cauchy conditions are required. A regular solution is obtained by means of approximation techniques for parabolic systems. Then, an asymptotic study of the problem is carried out as the time relaxation parameter for the phase field tends to 0 in one of the domains. It is also proved that the limit formulation admits a unique solution in a suitable weak sense

Attractors for nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems in unbounded domains via the method of short trajectories

We consider a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation settled on the whole euclidean space. We prove the well-posedness of the corresponding Cauchy problem in a general functional setting, namely, when the initial datum is uniformly locally bounded in L^2. Then we adapt the short trajectory method to establish the existence of the global attractor and, if the space dimension is at most 3, we also find an upper bound of its Kolmogorov's entropy