We consider the sharp interface limit of the Allen-Cahn equation with homogeneous Neumann boundary condition in a two-dimensional domain $Ω$, in the situation where an interface has developed and intersects $\partialΩ$. Here a parameter $\varepsilon>0$ in the equation, which is related to the thickness of the diffuse interface, is sent to zero. The limit problem is given by mean curvature flow with a $90$\textdegree-contact angle condition and convergence using strong norms is shown for small times. Here we assume that a smooth solution to this limit problem exists on $[0,T]$ for some $T>0$ and that it can be parametrized suitably. With the aid of asymptotic expansions we construct an approximate solution for the Allen-Cahn equation and estimate the difference of the exact and approximate solution with the aid of a spectral estimate for the linearized Allen-Cahn operator.
In this paper, we prove even symmetry of monotone traveling wave solutions to the balanced Allen-Cahn equation in the entire plane. Related results for the unbalanced Allen-Cahn equation are also discussed.
In this paper, we are interested in bounded, entire, solutions of the Allen-Cahn equation which are defined in Euclidean space and whose zero set is asymptotic to a given minimal cone. In particular, in dimension larger than or equal to 8, we prove the existence of stable solutions of the Allen-Cahn equation whose zero sets are not hyperplanes.
For the Allen-Cahn equation, it is well known that there is a monotone standing wave joining with the balanced wells of the potential. In this paper we study the existence of traveling wave solutions for the Allen-Cahn equation on an infinite channel. Such traveling wave solutions possess a large number of oscillation and they are obtained with the aid of variational arguments.
We study entire viscosity solutions of the Allen-Cahn type equation for the truncated Laplacian that are either one dimensional or radial, in order to shed some light on a possible extension of the Gibbons conjecture in this degenerate elliptic setting.
In this paper, we study the relation between the second inner variations of the Allen-Cahn functional and its Gamma-limit, the area functional. Our result implies that the Allen-Cahn functional only approximates well the area functional up to the first order. However, as an application of our result, we prove, assuming the single-multiplicity property of the limiting energy, that the Morse indices of critical points of the Allen-Cahn functional are bounded from below by the Morse index of the limiting minimal hypersurface.
In this set of notes, we present some recent developments on the fractional Allen-Cahn equation $$ (-Δ)^s u = u-u^3,$$ with special attention to $Γ$-convergence results, energy and density estimates, convergence of level sets, Hamiltonian estimates, rigidity and symmetry results.
We establish existence and non-existence results for entire solutions to the fractional Allen-Cahn equation in $\mathbb R^3$, which vanish on helicoids and are invariant under screw-motion. In addition, we prove that helicoids are surfaces with vanishing nonlocal mean curvature.
We consider a Dirichlet problem for the Allen-Cahn equation in a smooth, bounded or unbounded, domain $Ω\subset {\bf R}^n.$ Under suitable assumptions, we prove an existence result and a uniform exponential estimate for symmetric solutions. In dimension n=2 an additional asymptotic result is obtained. These results are based on a pointwise estimate obtained for local minimizers of the Allen-Cahn energy.
We prove optimal lower bounds for the growth of the energy over balls of minimizers to the vectorial Allen-Cahn energy in two spatial dimensions, as the radius tends to infinity. In the case of radially symmetric solutions, we can prove a stronger result in all dimensions.
In this paper we study the fractional analogue of the Allen-Cahn energy in bounded domains, and we show that it admits a number of critical points which goes to infinity as the perturbation parameter tends to zero.
For a solution of the Allen-Cahn equation in $\mathbb{R}^2$, under the natural linear growth energy bound, we show that the blowing down limit is unique. Furthermore, if the solution has finite Morse index, the blowing down limit satisfies the multiplicity one property.
This article presents some qualitative results for entire solutions of the fully nonlinear elliptic equations of Allen Cahn type . Precisely under some additional assumptions on the forcing term, if the solution is bounded and converges uniformly at infinity in a fixed direction to its extrema, then the solution depends only on one variable.
This paper studies two well-known models for two-phase fluid flow at constant temperature, the isothermal Navier-Stokes-Allen-Cahn and the isothermal Navier-Stokes-Cahn-Hilliard equations, both of which consist of equations for the (total) fluid density rho, the (mass-averaged)velocity u and the concentration (of one of the phases,) c. Assuming in either case that both phases are incompressible with different densities, each of the models is shown to reduce to a system of evolution equations in rho and u alone. In the case of the Navier-Stokes-Allen-Cahn model, this reduced system is the class…
We consider solutions of the Allen-Cahn equation in the whole Grushin plane and we show that if they are monotone in the vertical direction, then they are stable and they satisfy a good energy estimate. However, they are not necessarily one-dimensional, as a counter-example shows.
In this paper we establish an improvement of tilt-excess decay estimate for the Allen-Cahn equation, and use this to give a new proof of Savin's theorem on the uniform $C^{1,α}$ regularity of flat level sets, which then implies the one dimensional symmetry of minimizers in $\mathbb{R}^n$ for $n\leq 7$. This generalizes Allard's $\varepsilon$-regularity theorem for stationary varifolds to the setting of Allen-Cahn equations.
In this paper, we prove even symmetry and monotonicity of certain solutions of Allen-Cahn equation in a half plane. We also show that entire solutions with {\it finite Morse index} and {\it four ends} must be evenly symmetric with respect to two orthogonal axes. A classification scheme of general entire solutions with {\it finite Morse index} is also presented using energy quantization.
Formal asymptotic expansions have long been used to study the singularly perturbed Allen-Cahn type equations and reaction-diffusion systems, including in particular the FitzHugh-Nagumo system. Despite their successful role, it has been largely unclear whether or not such expansions really represent the actual profile of solutions with rather general initial data. By combining our earlier result and known properties of eternal solutions of the Allen-Cahn equation, we prove validity of the principal term of the formal expansions for a large class of solutions.
In this paper we study axially symmetric solutions of Allen-Cahn equation with finite Morse index. It is shown that there does not exist such a solution in dimensions between $4$ and $10$. In dimension $3$, we prove that these solutions have finitely many ends. Furthermore, the solution has exactly two ends if its Morse index equals $1$.
We investigate the behavior, as a small parameter tends to zero, of a nonlocal Allen-Cahn equation. Given a rather general initial data, we perform a rigorous analysis of both the generation and the motion of interface, and obtain a new estimate for its thickness. The limit problem involves motion by mean curvature together with a nonlocal effect (which allows the possibility of nontrivial stationary state).
We give a short and self-contained proof for rates of convergence of the Allen-Cahn equation towards mean curvature flow, assuming that a classical (smooth) solution to the latter exists and starting from well-prepared initial data. Our approach is based on a relative entropy technique. In particular, it does not require a stability analysis for the linearized Allen-Cahn operator. As our analysis also does not rely on the comparison principle, we expect it to be applicable to more complex equations and systems.
We are concerned with solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation in Riemannian manifolds. For a general class of initial condition we show non positivity of the limiting energy discrepancy. This in turn allows to prove almost monotonicity formula (a weak counterpart of Huisken's monotonicity formula) which gives a local uniform control of the energy densities at small scales. Such results will be used in [40] to extend previous important results from [31] in Euclidean space, showing convergence of solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equations to Brakke's motion by mean curvature in space…
By using the unique continuation principle for linear elliptic systems, we can simplify the proof of a recent variational maximum principle due to Alikakos and Fusco. At the same time, this approach allows us to relax an assumption from the latter reference.
We prove convergence of solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation to Brakke's motion by mean curvature in space forms, generalizing previous results from [15] in Euclidean space. We show that a sequence of measures, associated to energy density of solutions of the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation, converges in the limit to a family of rectifiable Radon measures, which evolves by mean curvature flow in the sense of Brakke. A key role is played by a local almost monotonicity formula (a weak counterpart of Huisken's monotonicity formula) proved in [22], to get various density bounds for the lim…
The Allen-Cahn action functional is related to the probability of rare events in the stochastically perturbed Allen-Cahn equation. Formal calculations suggest a reduced action functional in the sharp interface limit. We prove in two and three space dimensions the corresponding lower bound. One difficulty is that diffuse interfaces may collapse in the limit. We therefore consider the limit of diffuse surface area measures and introduce a generalized velocity and generalized reduced action functional in a class of evolving measures. As a corollary we obtain the Gamma convergence of the action fu…
Under proper hypotheses, we rigorously derive the Plateau angle conditions at triple junctions of diffused interfaces in three dimensions, starting from the vector-valued Allen-Cahn equation with a triple-well potential. Our derivation is based on an application of the divergence theorem using the divergence-free form of the equation via an associated stress tensor.
We aim to study the solutions of a fractional mesoscopic model of phase transitions in a periodic medium. After investigating the geometric properties of the interface of the associated minimal solutions, we construct minimal interfaces lying to a strip of prescribed direction and universal width.
In this paper we study a model for phase segregation consisting in a sistem of a partial and an ordinary differential equation. By a careful definition of maximal solution to the latter equation, this system reduces to an Allen-Cahn equation with a memory term. Global existence and uniqueness of a smooth solution are proven and a characterization of the omega-limit set is given.
In this note, we consider a nonlinear diffusion equation with a bistable reaction term arising in population dynamics. Given a rather general initial data, we investigate its behavior for small times as the reaction coefficient tends to infinity: we prove a generation of interface property.
We develop a new infinite dimensional gluing method for fractional elliptic equations. As a model problem, we construct solutions of the fractional Allen--Cahn equation vanishing on a rotationally symmetric surface which resembles a catenoid and have sub-linear growth at infinity. Moreover, such solutions are unstable.
We use the notion of first and second inner variations as a bridge allowing one to pass to the limit of first and second Gateaux variations for the Allen-Cahn, Cahn-Hilliard and Ohta-Kawasaki energies. Under suitable assumptions, this allows us to show that stability passes to the sharp interface limit, including boundary terms, by considering non-compactly supported velocity and acceleration fields in our variations. This complements the results of Tonegawa, and Tonegawa and Wickramasekera, where interior stability is shown to pass to the limit. As a further application, we prove an asymptoti…
In recent years there has been an emerging interest in PDE-like flows defined on finite graphs, with applications in clustering and image segmentation. In particular for image segmentation and semi-supervised learning Bertozzi and Flenner (2012) developed an algorithm based on the Allen-Cahn gradient flow of a graph Ginzburg-Landau functional, and Merkurjev, Kostić and Bertozzi (2013) devised a variant algorithm based instead on graph Merriman-Bence-Osher (MBO) dynamics. This work offers rigorous justification for this use of the MBO scheme in place of Allen-Cahn flow. First, we choose the dou…
We discuss the sharp interface limit of a coupled Navier-Stokes/Allen-Cahn system in a two dimensional, bounded and smooth domain, when a parameter $\varepsilon>0$ that is proportional to the thickness of the diffuse interface tends to zero rigorously. We prove convergence of the solutions of the Navier-Stokes/Allen-Cahn system to solutions of a sharp interface model, where the interface evolution is given by the mean curvature flow with an additional convection term coupled to a two-phase Navier-Stokes system with surface tension. This is done by constructing an approximate solution from the …
We introduce a fractional variant of the Cahn-Hilliard equation settled in a bounded domain $Ω$ of $R^N$ and complemented with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions of solid type (i.e., imposed in the entire complement of $Ω$). After setting a proper functional framework, we prove existence and uniqueness of weak solutions to the related initial-boundary value problem. Then, we investigate some significant singular limits obtained as the order of either of the fractional Laplacians appearing in the equation is let tend to 0. In particular, we can rigorously prove that the fractional Allen-…
We study weak solutions to mean curvature flow satisfying Young's angle condition for general contact angles $α\in (0,π)$. First, we construct BV solutions using the Allen-Cahn approximation with boundary contact energy as proposed by Owen and Sternberg. Second, we prove the weak-strong uniqueness and stability for this solution concept. The main ingredient for both results is a relative energy, which can also be interpreted as a tilt excess.
The well-posedness for a system of partial differential equations and dynamic boundary conditions is discussed. This system is a sort of transmission problem between the dynamics in the bulk $Ω$ and on the boundary $Γ$. The Poisson equation for the chemical potential, the Allen-Cahn equation for the order parameter in the bulk $Ω$ are considered as auxiliary conditions for solving the Cahn-Hilliard equation on the boundary $Γ$. Recently the well-posedness for the equation and dynamic boundary condition, both of Cahn-Hilliard type, was discussed. Based on this result, the existence of the solut…
This paper is concerned with a non-isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes/Allen-Cahn system with phase variable dependent viscosity $η(χ)=χ^α$ and temperature dependent heat-conductivity $κ(θ)=θ^β$. We show the global existence of strong solutions under some assumptions on growth exponent $α$ and initial data. It is worth noting that the initial data could be large if $α\ge0$ is small, and the growth exponent $β>0$ can be arbitrary large.
We study a singular limit problem of the Allen-Cahn equation with the homogeneous Neumann boundary condition on non-convex domains with smooth boundaries under suitable assumptions for initial data. The main result is the convergence of the time parametrized family of the diffused surface energy to Brakke's mean curvature flow with a generalized right angle condition on the boundary of the domain.
In this paper, we prove an analogue of Gibbons' conjecture for the extended fourth order Allen-Cahn equation in R N , as well as Liouville type results for some solutions converging to the same value at infinity in a given direction. We also prove a priori bounds and further one-dimensional symmetry and rigidity results for semilinear fourth order elliptic equations with more general nonlinearities.
The coupled Navier-Stokes/Allen-Cahn system is a simple model to describe phase separation in two-component systems interacting with an incompressible fluid flow. We demonstrate the \emph{weak-strong uniqueness} result for this system in a bounded domain in three spatial dimensions which implies that when a strong solution exists then a weak solution emanating from the same data coincides with the strong solution on its whole life-span. The proof of given assertion relies on a form of a relative entropy method.
We present a convergence result for solutions of the vector-valued Allen-Cahn Equation. In the spirit of the work of Luckhaus and Sturzenhecker we establish convergence towards a distributional formulation of multi-phase mean-curvature flow using sets of finite perimeter. Like their result, ours relies on the assumption that the time-integrated energies of the approximations converge to those of the limit. Furthermore, we apply our proof to two variants of the equation, incorporating external forces and a volume constraint.
This paper address the approximation of the dynamic of two fluids with non matching densities and viscosities modeled by the Allen-Cahn equation coupled with the time dependent Navier-Stokes equations. Existence, uniqueness and a maximum principle are obtained for a totally implicit semi-discrete in time formulation. These results are based on an original stabilized fixed point algorithm for which well posedness and convergence is analyzed. Numerical experiments are performed to show the influence of the iterative process.
We consider the sharp interface limit of a convective Allen-Cahn equation, which can be part of a Navier-Stokes/Allen-Cahn system, for different scalings of the mobility $m_\varepsilon=m_0\varepsilon^θ$ as $\varepsilon\to 0$. In the case $θ>2$ we show a (non-)convergence result in the sense that the concentrations converge to the solution of a transport equation, but they do not behave like a rescaled optimal profile in normal direction to the interface as in the case $θ=0$. Moreover, we show that an associated mean curvature functional does not converge the corresponding functional for the sh…
We consider an Allen-Cahn equation with nonlinear diffusion, motivated by the study of the scaling limit of certain interacting particle systems. We investigate its singular limit and show the generation and propagation of an interface in the limit. The evolution of this limit interface is governed by mean curvature flow with a novel, homogenized speed in terms of a surface tension-mobility parameter emerging from the nonlinearity in our equation.
We consider numerical solutions for the Allen-Cahn equation with standard double well potential and periodic boundary conditions. Surprisingly it is found that using standard numerical discretizations with high precision computational solutions may converge to completely incorrect steady states. This happens for very smooth initial data and state-of-the-art algorithms. We analyze this phenomenon and showcase the resolution of this problem by a new symmetry-preserving filter technique. We develop a new theoretical framework and rigorously prove the convergence to steady states for the filtered …
This paper is devoted to the global well-posedness of two Diffuse Interface systems modeling the motion of an incompressible two-phase fluid mixture in presence of capillarity effects in a bounded smooth domain $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^d$, $d=2,3$. We focus on dissipative mixing effects originating from the mass-conserving Allen-Cahn dynamics with the physically relevant Flory-Huggins potential. More precisely, we study the mass-conserving Navier-Stokes-Allen-Cahn system for nonhomogeneous fluids and the mass-conserving Euler-Allen-Cahn system for homogeneous fluids. We prove existence and uniquen…
