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  How to solve Cahn-Hilliard free energy extremization for a domain of finite size ?

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First I have to say I asked this question in physicsSE but afterwards somebody advised me to ask it here. Do I have to remove it from SE ?

I'm trying to get the solution of the Cahn-Hilliard equation in 1d with a certain mass C. We have two components, and let's assume we have the relation c1+c2=1.Hence we take only the variable c=c1.

The total energy with the Lagrange parameter ˜μ (which is a sort of non-local chemical potential) writes :

F[c(r)]={f(c(r))+ϵ22(c)2}dΩ˜μ(c(r)C)dΩ


In 1 dimension :
δFδc=0dfdc˜μϵ2d2cdx2=0

Multiplying with dc/dx leads to :
ϵ2dcf˜μ(cC)=dx

Symmetry imposes c(0)=0f(c(0))˜μ(c(0)C)=0

At infinity, we also have c()=0;c()=1 (or 0 depending on the potential you're using).

This equation is solvable for the classical Cahn-Hilliard with  f˜μ(cC)=(c2c20)2. The classical way is to get x(c) and then invert it. You find a tanh solution. But this solution does not respect the symmetry condition c(0)=0 (right you can make it very very close to 0 by building manually a solution with tanh functions... but I'm looking for an exact solution of the equation). Meaning it only gives the profile of an interface between 2 semi-infinite media.

What I don't understand is how to get a profile respecting the symmetry condition, meaning with a nucleus/aggregate of one phase into the other phase. Meaning a phase of finite size (for example c=1) into the other phase (c=1).

I'm wondering wether my problem is overconstrained since the equation ϵ2dcf˜μ(cC)=dx admits only one new constant and there are 3 constraints : c(0)=c(±)=0 and Rcdx=C (about this one I have a doubt since C enters the potential).

Could you help please ?

I'm also surprised I didn't find any litterature about this problem.

REMARK :  I was wondering maybe there was something missing in the equations. But actually no, since the dynamical equation used in simulations is :tc=.(M(c)((f(c)~μ)ϵ2Δc)), so it's logical that the static picture is given by (f(c)~μ)ϵ2Δc=0.

However what could be is that indeed the system is overconstrained and there is no stable solution. Fortunately the tanh function provides a landscape that is "quasi-stable" (very very slowly unstable) in the sense that beyond the size of the interface it's as if we had a semi-infinite domain since we are very close to it and that's why we use this model in simulations.

What do you think about it ? If this proposition were to be right, what could be a formalism with whom we could build a solution for a finite domain ?

asked Aug 1, 2019 in Theoretical Physics by JA (20 points) [ revision history ]
edited Aug 2, 2019 by JA

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