Global Existence for a Strongly Coupled Cahn-Hilliard System with Viscosity

Colli, Pierluigi ; Gilardi, Gianni ; Podio-Guidugli, Paolo ; Sprekels, Jürgen

Bollettino della Unione matematica italiana, Série 9, Tome 5 (2012) no. 3, pp. 495-513

Résumé

An existence result is proved for a nonlinear diffusion problem of phase-field type, consisting of a parabolic system of two partial differential equations, complemented by Neumann homogeneous boundary conditions and initial conditions. This system is meant to model two-species phase segregation on an atomic lattice under the presence of diffusion. A similar system has been recently introduced and analyzed in [3]. Both systems conform to the general theory developed in [5]: two parabolic PDEs, interpreted as balances of microforces and microenergy, are to be solved for the order parameter $\rho$ and the chemical potential $\mu$. In the system studied in this note, a phase-field equation in $\rho$ fairly more general than in [3] is coupled with a highly nonlinear diffusion equation for $\mu$, in which the diffusivity coefficient is allowed to depend nonlinearly on both variables.