Thin-Layer Dichotomy in Three-Phase Mullins-Sekerka Flow: Gap Dynamics and Composite Interfaces

Abstract

We study the thin-layer limit of the Mullins-Sekerka flow in concentric circular geometries at fixed wave number $k$, contrasting a two-phase annulus with a genuine three-phase layer. A dichotomy emerges: for $k\ge2$ the rates blow up like the inverse thickness when the same phase lies on both sides of the layer, whereas between two different phases the matrix governing the linearized Fourier mode extends analytically to zero thickness. Both cases share the singular Dirichlet-to-Neumann factor of the thin annulus and differ only in whether the Gibbs-Thomson law forces an order-one potential difference across it. In the three-phase case the pure thickness-modulation rate stays below the logarithmic growth rate of the mean thickness, for every $k\ge1$ and all positive tensions, and, after projection onto the mean displacement and the outer interface, the collapsed pair moves as one interface carrying the sum of the two tensions. All statements concern the instantaneous fixed-mode linearization. The singularity is a property of the phase coupling, not of the thin geometry.