arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Arghir Zarnescu.
We study the scaled anisotropic co-rotational Beris-Edwards system modeling the hydrodynamic motion of nematic liquid crystals in dimension two. We prove the global well-posedness with small analytic data in a thin strip domain. Moreover, we justify the limit to a system involving the hydrostatic Navier-Stokes system with analytic data and prove the convergence.
We consider the motion of $N$ rigid bodies -- compact sets $(\mathcal{S}^1_\varepsilon, \cdots, \mathcal{S}^N_\varepsilon )_{\varepsilon > 0}$ -- immersed in a viscous incompressible fluid contained in a domain in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$, $d=2,3$. We show the fluid flow is not influenced by the presence of the infinitely many bodies in the asymptotic limit $\varepsilon \to 0$ and $N=N(\varepsilon)\rightarrow\infty$ as soon as \[ {\rm diam}[\mathcal{S}^i_\varepsilon ] \to 0 \ \mbox{as}\ \varepsilon \to 0 ,\ i=1,\cdots, N(\varepsilon). \] The result depends solely on the geometry of the bodies and is independent of their mass densities. Collisions are allowed and the initial data are arbitrary with finite energy.
We consider the motion of a small rigid object immersed in a viscous compressible fluid in the 3-dimensional Eucleidean space. Assuming the object is a ball of a small radius $\varepsilon$ we show that the behavior of the fluid is not influenced by the object in the asymptotic limit $\varepsilon \to 0$. The result holds for the isentropic pressure law $p(\varrho) = a \varrho^γ$ for any $γ> \frac{3}{2}$ under mild assumptions concerning the rigid body density. In particular, the latter may be bounded as soon as $γ> 3$. The proof uses a new method of construction of the test functions in the weak formulation of the problem, and, in particular, a new form of the so-called Bogovskii operator.
For the Landau-de Gennes functional on 3D domains, \begin{equation*} I_{\varepsilon}(Q,Ω):=\int_Ω\left\{\frac{1}{2}|\nabla Q|^2+\frac{1}{\varepsilon^2}\left( -\frac{a^2}{2}\mathrm{tr}(Q^2)-\frac{b^2}{3}\mathrm{tr}(Q^3)+\frac{c^2}{4}[\mathrm{tr}(Q^2)]^2 \right) \right\}\,dx, \end{equation*} it is well-known that under suitable boundary conditions, the global minimizer $Q_\varepsilon$ converges strongly in $H^1(Ω)$ to a uniaxial minimizer $Q_*=s_+(n_*\otimes n_*-\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{Id})$ up to some subsequence $\varepsilon_n\rightarrow\infty$ , where $n_*\in H^1(Ω,\mathbb{S}^2)$ is a minimizing harmonic map. In this paper we further investigate the structure of $Q_{\varepsilon}$ near the core of a point defect $x_0$ which is a singular point of the map $n_*$. The main strategy is to study the blow-up profile of $Q_{\varepsilon_n}(x_n+\varepsilon_n y)$ where $\{x_n\}$ are carefully chosen and converge to $x_0$. We prove that $Q_{\varepsilon_n}(x_n+\varepsilon_n y)$ converges in $C^2_{loc}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ to a tangent map $Q(x)$ which at infinity behaves like a "hedgehog" solution that coincides with the asymptotic profile of $n_*$ near $x_0$. Moreover, such convergence result implies that the minimizer $Q_{\varepsilon_n}$ can be well approximated by the Oseen-Frank minimizer $n_*$ outside the $O(\varepsilon_n)$ neighborhood of the point defect.
We consider the motion of a compressible viscous fluid containing a moving rigid body confined to a planar domain $Ω\subset R^2$. The main result states that the influence of the body on the fluid is negligible if (i) the diameter of the body is small and (ii) the fluid is nearly incompressible (the low Mach number regime). The specific shape of the body as well as the boundary conditions on the fluid--body interface are irrelevant and collisions with the boundary $\partial Ω$ are allowed. The rigid body motion may be enforced externally or governed solely by its interaction with the fluid.
We study globally bounded entire minimizers $u:\mathbb{R}^n\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^m$ of Allen-Cahn systems for potentials $W\geq 0$ with $\{W=0\}=\{a_1,...,a_N\}$ and $W(u)\sim |u-a_i|^α$ near $u=a_i$, $0<α<2$. Such solutions are, over large regions, identically equal to some zeroes of the potential $a_i$'s. We establish the estimates \begin{equation*} \mathcal{L}^n(I_0\cap B_r(x_0))\leq c_1r^{n-1},\quad \mathcal{H}^{n-1}(\partial^* I_0\cap B_r(x_0))\geq c_2r^{n-1}, \quad r\geq r_0(x_0) \end{equation*} for the diffuse interface $I_0:=\{x\in\mathbb{R}^n: \min_{1\leq i\leq N}|u(x)-a_i|>0\}$ and the free boundary $\partial I_0$. Furthermore, if $α=1$ we establish the upper bound \begin{equation*} \mathcal{H}^{n-1}(\partial^* I_0\cap B_r(x_0))\leq c_3r^{n-1}, \quad r\geq r_0(x_0). \end{equation*}
We study entire minimizers of the Allen-Cahn systems. The specific feature of our systems are potentials having a finite number of global minima, with sub-quadratic behaviour locally near their minima. The corresponding formal Euler-Lagrange equations are supplemented with free boundaries. We do not study regularity issues but focus on qualitative aspects. We show the existence of entire solutions in an equivariant setting connecting the minima of $ W $ at infinity, thus modeling many coexisting phases, possessing free boundaries and minimizing energy in the symmetry class. We also present a very modest result of existence of free boundaries under no symmetry hypotheses. The existence of a free boundary can be related to the existence of a specific sub-quadratic feature, a dead core, whose size is also quantified.
We study the effect of boundary rugosity in nematic liquid crystalline systems. We consider a highly general formulation of the problem, able to simultaneously deal with several liquid crystal theories. We use techniques of Gamma convergence and demonstrate that the effect of fine-scale surface oscillations may be replaced by an effective homogenised surface energy on a simpler domain. The homogenisation limit is then quantitatively studied in a simplified setting, obtaining convergence rates.
In this paper we study a limit connecting a scaled wave map with the heat flow into the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$. We show quantitatively how that the two equations are connected by means of an initial layer correction. This limit is motivated as a first step into understanding the limit of zero inertia for the hyperbolic-parabolic Ericksen-Leslie's liquid crystal model.
In modelling of chemical, physical or biological systems it may occur that the coefficients, multiplying various terms in the equation of interest, differ greatly in magnitude, if a particular system of units is used. Such is, for instance, the case of the Population Balance Equations (PBE) proposed to model the Latex Particles Morphology formation. The obvious way out of this difficulty is the use of dimensionless scaled quantities, although often the scaling procedure is not unique. In this paper, we introduce a conceptually new general approach, called Optimal Scaling (OS). The method is tested on the known examples from classical and quantum mechanics, and applied to the Latex Particles Morphology model, where it allows us to reduce the variation of the relevant coefficients from 49 to just 4 orders of magnitudes. The PBE are then solved by a novel Generalised Method Of Characteristics, and the OS is shown to help reduce numerical error, and avoid unphysical behaviour of the solution. Although inspired by a particular application, the proposed scaling algorithm is expected find application in a wide range of chemical, physical and biological problems.
We consider a Landau-de Gennes model for a polydisperse, inhomogeneous suspension of colloidal inclusions in a nematic host, in the dilute regime. We study the homogenised limit and compute the effective free energy of the composite material. By suitably choosing the shape of the inclusions and imposing a quadratic, Rapini-Papoular type surface anchoring energy density, we obtain an effective free energy functional with an additional linear term, which may be interpreted as an "effective field" induced by the inclusions. Moreover, we compute the effective free energy in a regime of "very strong anchoring", that is, when the surface energy effects dominate over the volume free energy.
We consider a variational two-dimensional Landau-de Gennes model in the theory of nematic liquid crystals in a disk of radius $R$. We prove that under a symmetric boundary condition carrying a topological defect of degree $\frac{k}{2}$ for some given {\bf even} non-zero integer $k$, there are exactly two minimizers for all large enough $R$. We show that the minimizers do not inherit the full symmetry structure of the energy functional and the boundary data. We further show that there are at least five symmetric critical points.
We study the asymptotic behavior of the minimisers of the Landau-de Gennes model for nematic liquid crystals in a two-dimensional domain in the regime of small elastic constant. At leading order in the elasticity constant, the minimum-energy configurations can be described by the simpler Oseen-Frank theory. Using a refined notion of $Γ$-development we recover Landau-de Gennes corrections to the Oseen-Frank energy. We provide an explicit characterisation of minimizing $Q$-tensors at this order in terms of optimal Oseen-Frank directors and observe the emerging biaxiality. We apply our results to distinguish between optimal configurations in the class of conformal director fields of fixed topological degree saturating the lower bound for the Oseen-Frank energy.
The main aim of this note is to prove a sharp Poincaré-type inequality for vector-valued functions on $\mathbb{S}^2$, that naturally emerges in the context of micromagnetics of spherical thin films.
We consider a Landau-de Gennes model for a suspension of small colloidal inclusions in a nematic host. We impose suitable anchoring conditions at the boundary of the inclusions, and we work in the dilute regime - i.e., the size of the inclusions is much smaller than the typical separation distance between them, so that the total volume occupied by the inclusions is small. By studying the homogenised limit, and proving rigorous convergence results for local minimisers, we compute the effective free energy for the doped material. In particular, we show that not only the phase transition temperature, but any coefficient of the quartic Landau-de Gennes bulk potential can be tuned, by suitably choosing the surface anchoring energy density.
For $ε>0$, we consider the Ginzburg-Landau functional for $\mathbb R^N$-valued maps defined in the unit ball $B^N\subset \mathbb R^N$ with the vortex boundary data $x$ on $\partial B^N$. In dimensions $N\geq 7$, we prove that for every $ε>0$, there exists a unique global minimizer $u_ε$ of this problem; moreover, $u_ε$ is symmetric and of the form $u_ε(x)=f_ε(|x|)\frac{x}{|x|}$ for $x\in B^N$.
We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the uniqueness of minimisers of the Ginzburg-Landau functional for $\mathbb{R}^n$-valued maps under a suitable convexity assumption on the potential and for $H^{1/2} \cap L^\infty$ boundary data that is non-negative in a fixed direction $e\in \mathbb{S}^{n-1}$. Furthermore, we show that, when minimisers are not unique, the set of minimisers is generated from any of its elements using appropriate orthogonal transformations of $\mathbb{R}^n$. We also prove corresponding results for harmonic maps
We consider the inertial Qian-Sheng model of liquid crystals which couples a hyperbolic-type equation involving a second-order material derivative with a forced incompressible Navier-Stokes system. We study the energy law and prove a global well-posedness result. We further provide an example of twist-wave solutions, that is solutions of the coupled system for which the flow vanishes for all times.