Dynamics of the Ericksen-Leslie Equations with General Leslie Stress I: The Incompressible Isotropic Case

The Ericksen-Leslie model for nematic liquid crystals in a bounded domain with general Leslie and isotropic Ericksen stress is studied in the case of a non-isothermal and incompressible fluid. This system is shown to be locally well-posed in the $L_p$-setting, and a dynamic theory is developed. The equilibria are identified and shown to be normally stable. In particular, a local solution extends to a unique, global strong solution provided the initial data are close to an equilibrium or the solution is eventually bounded in the topology of the natural state manifold. In this case, the solution converges exponentially to an equilibrium, in the topology of the state manifold. The above results are proven {\em without} any structural assumptions on the Leslie coefficients and in particular {\em without} assuming Parodi's relation

On a Class of Energy Preserving Boundary Conditions for Incompressible Newtonian Flows

We derive a class of energy preserving boundary conditions for incompressible Newtonian flows and prove local-in-time well-posedness of the resulting initial boundary value problems, i.e. the Navier-Stokes equations complemented by one of the derived boundary conditions, in an Lp-setting in domains, which are either bounded or unbounded with almost flat, sufficiently smooth boundary. The results are based on maximal regularity properties of the underlying linearisations, which are also established in the above setting.Comment: 53 page

On quasilinear parabolic evolution equations in weighted Lp-spaces II

Our study of abstract quasi-linear parabolic problems in time-weighted L_p-spaces, begun in [17], is extended in this paper to include singular lower order terms, while keeping low initial regularity. The results are applied to reaction-diffusion problems, including Maxwell-Stefan diffusion, and to geometric evolution equations like the surface-diffusion flow or the Willmore flow. The method presented here will be applicable to other parabolic systems, including free boundary problems.Comment: 21 page

On thermodynamically consistent Stefan problems with variable surface energy

A thermodynamically consistent two-phase Stefan problem with temperature-dependent surface tension and with or without kinetic undercooling is studied. It is shown that these problems generate local semiflows in well-defined state manifolds. If a solution does not exhibit singularities, it is proved that it exists globally in time and converges towards an equilibrium of the problem. In addition, stability and instability of equilibria is studied. In particular, it is shown that multiple spheres of the same radius are unstable if surface heat capacity is small; however, if kinetic undercooling is absent, they are stable if surface heat capacity is sufficiently large.Comment: To appear in Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00205-015-0938-y. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1101.376