Well-posedness of Strong Solutions for a Thermodynamically Consistent Diffuse-interface Model for Incompressible Two-phase Flows with a Soluble Surfactant

Abstract

We consider a thermodynamically consistent diffuse-interface model for binary mixtures of incompressible viscous Newtonian fluids with a soluble surfactant. This hydrodynamic system generalizes the Abels-Garcke-Grün model for two-phase flows with unmatched densities by incorporating an additional Cahn-Hilliard equation for the surfactant concentration. We study the strong well-posedness of the initial-boundary value problem with physically relevant singular potentials, subject to a no-slip boundary condition for the fluid velocity and homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions for the phase-field variables and the corresponding chemical potentials. First, we establish the existence of local-in-time strong solutions in three dimensions and global-in-time strong solutions in two dimensions. In the two-dimensional case, we further show that, under natural growth assumptions on the singular potentials, strong solutions remain strictly separated from the pure phases, thereby guaranteeing uniqueness. In the three-dimensional case, we establish local-in-time uniqueness of strong solutions, provided that the initial data are strictly separated from the pure phases. Our results extend previous work on strong solutions to the Abels-Garcke-Grün model from the special case of constant mobility to the more general scenario with concentration-dependent mobilities and interactions with a surfactant.