Coarsening rates for models of multicomponent phase separation

  • Robert V. Kohn

    New York University, USA
  • Xiaodong Yan

    New York University, USA

Abstract

We study the coarsening of solutions of two models of multicomponent phase separation. One is a constant mobility system; the other is a degenerate mobility system. These models are natural generalizations of the Cahn-Hilliard equation to the case of a vector-valued order parameter. It has been conjectured that the characteristic length scale (t)\ell (t) grows like t1/3t^{1/3} as t\rawt\raw \infty for the first case and t1/4\ell \sim t^{1/4} for the second case. We prove a weak one-sided version of this assertion. Our method follows a strategy introduced by Kohn and Otto for problems with a scalar-valued order parameter; it combines a dissipation relationship with an isoperimetric inequality and an ODE argument. We also address a related model for anisotropic epitaxial growth.

Cite this article

Robert V. Kohn, Xiaodong Yan, Coarsening rates for models of multicomponent phase separation. Interfaces Free Bound. 6 (2004), no. 1, pp. 135–149

DOI 10.4171/IFB/94