Calculus of Variations and Geometric Measure Theory

E. Acerbi - G. Bouchitté

A General Class of Phase Transition Models with Weighted Interface Energy

created by acerbi on 19 Sep 2007

[BibTeX]

Accepted Paper

Inserted: 19 sep 2007

Journal: Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Anal. Non Linéaire
Year: 2007

Abstract:

We study a family of singular perturbation problems of the kind $$ \inf \left\{\frac{1}{\varepsilon}\int\Omega f(u , \varepsilon \nabla u, \varepsilon \rho) \, dx \ :\ \int\Omega u = m0 \;,\ \int\Omega \rho = m1\right\}\;,$$ where $u$ represents a fluid density and the nonnegative energy density $f$ vanishes only for $u=\alpha$ or $u=\beta$. The novelty of the model is the additional variable $\rho\ge 0$ which is also unknown and interplays with the gradient of $u$ in the formation of interfaces. Under mild assumptions on $f$, we characterize the limit energy as $\varepsilon\to 0$ and find for each $f$ a transition energy (well defined when $u\in BV(\Omega;\{\alpha,\beta\})$ and $\rho$ is a measure) which depends on the $n-1$ dimensional density of the measure $\rho$ on the jump set of $u$. An explicit formula is also given.


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