arXiv subjects

Endre Süli

Publications and source records attributed to Endre Süli.

64 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Sharp Interface Limits of the Cahn-Hilliard Equation with Degenerate Mobility

In this work, the sharp interface limit of the degenerate Cahn-Hilliard equation (in two space dimensions) with a polynomial double well free energy and a quadratic mobility is derived via a matched asymptotic analysis involving exponentially large and small terms and multiple inner layers. In contrast to some results found in the literature, our analysis reveals that the interface motion is driven by a combination of surface diffusion flux proportional to the surface Laplacian of the interface curvature and an additional contribution from nonlinear, porous-medium type bulk diffusion, For higher degenerate mobilities, bulk diffusion is subdominant. The sharp interface models are corroborated by comparing relaxation rates of perturbations to a radially symmetric stationary state with those obtained by the phase field model.

math-ph↗

arXiv2015

Degenerate Mobilities in Phase Field Models are Insufficient to Capture Surface Diffusion

Phase field models frequently provide insight to phase transitions, and are robust numerical tools to solve free boundary problems corresponding to the motion of interfaces. A body of prior literature suggests that interface motion via surface diffusion is the long-time, sharp interface limit of microscopic phase field models such as the Cahn-Hilliard equation with a degenerate mobility function. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, we show that the long-time behaviour of degenerate Cahn-Hilliard equation with a polynomial free energy undergoes coarsening, reflecting the presence of bulk diffusion, rather than pure surface diffusion. This reveals an important limitation of phase field models that are frequently used to model surface diffusion.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2014

Tensor-Sparsity of Solutions to High-Dimensional Elliptic Partial Differential Equations

A recurring theme in attempts to break the curse of dimensionality in the numerical approximations of solutions to high-dimensional partial differential equations (PDEs) is to employ some form of sparse tensor approximation. Unfortunately, there are only a few results that quantify the possible advantages of such an approach. This paper introduces a class $Σ_n$ of functions, which can be written as a sum of rank-one tensors using a total of at most $n$ parameters and then uses this notion of sparsity to prove a regularity theorem for certain high-dimensional elliptic PDEs. It is shown, among other results, that whenever the right-hand side $f$ of the elliptic PDE can be approximated with a certain rate $\mathcal{O}(n^{-r})$ in the norm of ${\mathrm H}^{-1}$ by elements of $Σ_n$, then the solution $u$ can be approximated in ${\mathrm H}^1$ from $Σ_n$ to accuracy $\mathcal{O}(n^{-r'})$ for any $r'\in (0,r)$. Since these results require knowledge of the eigenbasis of the elliptic operator considered, we propose a second "basis-free" model of tensor sparsity and prove a regularity theorem for this second sparsity model as well. We then proceed to address the important question of the extent such regularity theorems translate into results on computational complexity. It is shown how this second model can be used to derive computational algorithms with performance that breaks the curse of dimensionality on certain model high-dimensional elliptic PDEs with tensor-sparse data.

math.NA↗

arXiv2014

Discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods for time-dependent Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman equations with Cordes coefficients

We propose and analyse a fully-discrete discontinuous Galerkin time-stepping method for parabolic Hamilton--Jacobi--Bellman equations with Cordes coefficients. The method is consistent and unconditionally stable on rather general unstructured meshes and time-partitions. Error bounds are obtained for both rough and regular solutions, and it is shown that for sufficiently smooth solutions, the method is arbitrarily high-order with optimal convergence rates with respect to the mesh size, time-interval length and temporal polynomial degree, and possibly suboptimal by an order and a half in the spatial polynomial degree. Numerical experiments on problems with strongly anisotropic diffusion coefficients and early-time singularities demonstrate the accuracy and computational efficiency of the method, with exponential convergence rates under combined $hp$- and $τq$-refinement.

math.NA↗

arXiv2013

Finite element approximation of steady flows of incompressible fluids with implicit power-law-like rheology

We develop the analysis of finite element approximations of implicit power-law-like models for viscous incompressible fluids. The Cauchy stress and the symmetric part of the velocity gradient in the class of models under consideration are related by a, possibly multi--valued, maximal monotone $r$-graph, with $1<r<\infty$. Using a variety of weak compactness techniques, including Chacon's biting lemma and Young measures, we show that a subsequence of the sequence of finite element solutions converges to a weak solution of the problem as the finite element discretization parameter $h$ tends to 0. A key new technical tool in our analysis is a finite element counterpart of the Acerbi--Fusco Lipschitz truncation of Sobolev functions.

math.NA↗

arXiv2012

Greedy approximation of high-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operators

We investigate the convergence of a nonlinear approximation method introduced by Ammar et al. (J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech. 139:153-176, 2006) for the numerical solution of high-dimensional Fokker-Planck equations featuring in Navier-Stokes-Fokker-Planck systems that arise in kinetic models of dilute polymers. In the case of Poisson's equation on a rectangular domain in R^2, subject to a homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition, the mathematical analysis of the algorithm was carried out recently by Le Bris, Lelièvre and Maday (Const. Approx. 30:621-651, 2009), by exploiting its connection to greedy algorithms from nonlinear approximation theory, explored, for example, by DeVore and Temlyakov (Adv. Comput. Math. 5:173-187, 1996); hence, the variational version of the algorithm, based on the minimization of a sequence of Dirichlet energies, was shown to converge. Here, we extend the convergence analysis of the pure greedy and orthogonal greedy algorithms considered by Le Bris et al. to a technically more complicated situation, where the Laplace operator is replaced by an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck operator of the kind that appears in Fokker-Planck equations that arise in bead-spring chain type kinetic polymer models with finitely extensible nonlinear elastic potentials, posed on a high-dimensional Cartesian product configuration space D = D_1 x ... x D_N contained in R^(N d), where each set D_i, i = 1, ..., N, is a bounded open ball in R^d, d = 2, 3.

math.NA↗

arXiv2011

Existence of global weak solutions to finitely extensible nonlinear bead-spring chain models for dilute polymers with variable density and viscosity

We show the existence of global-in-time weak solutions to a general class of coupled bead-spring chain models that arise from the kinetic theory of dilute solutions of nonhomogeneous polymeric liquids with noninteracting polymer chains, with finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE) spring potentials. The class of models under consideration involves the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with variable density and density-dependent dynamic viscosity in a bounded domain in two and three space dimensions, for the density, the velocity and the pressure of the fluid, with an elastic extra-stress tensor appearing on the right-hand side in the momentum equation. The extra-stress tensor stems from the random movement of the polymer chains and is defined by the Kramers expression through the associated probability density that satisfies a Fokker-Planck-type parabolic equation, a crucial feature of which is the presence of a centre-of-mass diffusion term and a nonlinear density-dependent drag coefficient. With a bounded and positive initial density for the continuity equation; a square-integrable and divergence-free initial velocity datum for the Navier-Stokes equation; and a nonnegative initial probability density function for the Fokker-Planck equation, which has finite relative entropy with respect to the Maxwellian associated with the spring potential in the model, we prove, via a limiting procedure on certain regularization parameters, the existence of a global-in-time weak solution to the coupled Navier-Stokes-Fokker-Planck system, satisfying the given initial condition.

math.AP↗

arXiv2011

Existence and equilibration of global weak solutions to finitely extensible nonlinear bead-spring chain models for dilute polymers

We show the existence of global-in-time weak solutions to a general class of coupled FENE-type bead-spring chain models that arise from the kinetic theory of dilute solutions of polymeric liquids with noninteracting polymer chains. The class of models involves the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a bounded domain in two or three space dimensions for the velocity and the pressure of the fluid, with an elastic extra-stress tensor appearing on the right-hand side in the momentum equation. The extra-stress tensor stems from the random movement of the polymer chains and is defined by the Kramers expression through the associated probability density function that satisfies a Fokker-Planck-type parabolic equation, a crucial feature of which is the presence of a center-of-mass diffusion term. We require no structural assumptions on the drag term in the Fokker-Planck equation; in particular, the drag term need not be corotational. With a square-integrable and divergence-free initial velocity datum for the Navier-Stokes equation and a nonnegative initial probability density function for the Fokker-Planck equation, which has finite relative entropy with respect to the Maxwellian of the model, we prove the existence of a global-in-time weak solution to the coupled Navier-Stokes-Fokker-Planck system. It is also shown that in the absence of a body force, the weak solution decays exponentially in time to the equilibrium solution, at a rate that is independent of the choice of the initial datum and of the centre-of-mass diffusion coefficient.

math.AP↗

arXiv2011

Reflections on Dubinskii's nonlinear compact embedding theorem

We present an overview of a result by Ju. A. Dubinskii [Mat. Sb. 67 (109) (1965); translated in Amer. Math. Soc. Transl. (2) 67 (1968)], concerning the compact embedding of a seminormed set in $L^p(0,T; \mathcal{A}_0)$, where $\mathcal{A}_0$ is a Banach space and $p \in [1,\infty]$; we establish a variant of Dubinskii's theorem, where a seminormed nonnegative cone is used instead of a seminormed set; and we explore the connections of these results with a nonlinear compact embedding theorem due to E. Maitre [Int. J. Math. Math. Sci. 27 (2003)].

math.AP↗

arXiv2010

Existence and equilibration of global weak solutions to Hookean-type bead-spring chain models for dilute polymers

We show the existence of global-in-time weak solutions to a general class of coupled Hookean-type bead-spring chain models that arise from the kinetic theory of dilute solutions of polymeric liquids with noninteracting polymer chains. The class of models involves the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a bounded domain in two or three space dimensions for the velocity and the pressure of the fluid, with an elastic extra-stress tensor appearing on the right-hand side in the momentum equation. The extra-stress tensor stems from the random movement of the polymer chains and is defined by the Kramers expression through the associated probability density function that satisfies a Fokker-Planck-type parabolic equation, a crucial feature of which is the presence of a center-of-mass diffusion term. We require no structural assumptions on the drag term in the Fokker-Planck equation; in particular, the drag term need not be corotational. With a square-integrable and divergence-free initial velocity datum for the Navier-Stokes equation and a nonnegative initial probability density function for the Fokker-Planck equation, which has finite relative entropy with respect to the Maxwellian of the model, we prove the existence of a global-in-time weak solution to the coupled Navier-Stokes-Fokker-Planck system. It is also shown that in the absence of a body force, the weak solution decays exponentially in time to the equilibrium solution, at a rate that is independent of the choice of the initial datum and of the centre-of-mass diffusion coefficient.

math.AP↗