2020, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

In this contribution, we deal with the longtime behavior of the solutions to the fractional variant of the Cahn-Hilliard system, with possibly singular potentials, that we have recently investigated in the paper Well-posedness and regularity for a generalized fractional Cahn-Hilliard system. More precisely, we study the ω-limit of the phase parameter y and characterize it completely. Our characterization depends on the first eigenvalues λ1≥0 of one of the operators involved: if λ1>0, then the chemical potential μ vanishes at infinity and every element yω of the ω-limit is a stationary solution to the phase equation; if instead λ1=0, then every element yω of the ω-limit satisfies a problem containing a real function μ∞ related to the chemical potential μ. Such a function μ∞ is nonunique and time dependent, in general, as we show by an example. However, we give sufficient conditions for μ∞ to be uniquely determined and constant.

2021, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

In the recent paper “Well-posedness and regularity for a generalized fractional Cahn–Hilliard system” (Colli et al. in Atti Accad Naz Lincei Rend Lincei Mat Appl 30:437–478, 2019), the same authors have studied viscous and nonviscous Cahn–Hilliard systems of two operator equations in which nonlinearities of double-well type, like regular or logarithmic potentials, as well as nonsmooth potentials with indicator functions, were admitted. The operators appearing in the system equations are fractional powers A2r and B2σ (in the spectral sense) of general linear operators A and B, which are densely defined, unbounded, selfadjoint, and monotone in the Hilbert space L2(Ω), for some bounded and smooth domain Ω⊂R3, and have compact resolvents. Existence, uniqueness, and regularity results have been proved in the quoted paper. Here, in the case of the viscous system, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of the solution as the parameter σ appearing in the operator B2σ decreasingly tends to zero. We prove convergence to a phase relaxation problem at the limit, and we also investigate this limiting problem, in which an additional term containing the projection of the phase variable on the kernel of B appears.

2011, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Podio-Guidugli, Paolo, Sprekels, Jürgen, Müller, Ingo

We investigate a distributed optimal control problem for a phase field model of Cahn-Hilliard type. The model describes two-species phase segregation on an atomic lattice under the presence of diffusion; it has been introduced recently in [4], on the basis of the theory developed in [15], and consists of a system of two highly nonlinearly coupled PDEs. For this reason, standard arguments of optimal control theory do not apply directly, although the control constraints and the cost functional are of standard type. We show that the problem admits a solution, and we derive the first-order necessary conditions of optimality.

2015, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Rocca, Elisabetta, Sprekels, Jürgen

This paper is concerned with a phase field system of Cahn-Hilliard type that is related to a tumor growth model and consists of three equations in gianni terms of the variables order parameter, chemical potential and nutrient concentration. This system has been investigated in the recent papers citeCGH and citeCGRS gianni from the viewpoint of well-posedness, long time bhv and asymptotic convergence as two positive viscosity coefficients tend to zero at the same time. Here, we continue the analysis performed in citeCGRS by showing two independent sets of results as just one of the coefficents tends to zero, the other remaining fixed. We prove convergence results, uniqueness of solutions to the two resulting limit problems, and suitable error estimates

2015, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

A boundary control problem for the pure Cahn–Hilliard equations with possibly singular potentialsand dynamic boundary conditions is studied and rst-order necessary conditions for optimality are proved.

2019, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

In this paper, we study the distributed optimal control of a system of three evolutionary equations involving fractional powers of three self-adjoint, monotone, unbounded linear operators having compact resolvents. The system is a generalization of a Cahn-Hilliard type phase field system modeling tumor growth that has been proposed by Hawkins-Daarud, van der Zee and Oden. The aim of the control process, which could be realized by either administering a drug or monitoring the nutrition, is to keep the tumor cell fraction under control while avoiding possible harm for the patient. In contrast to previous studies, in which the occurring unbounded operators governing the diffusional regimes were all given by the Laplacian with zero Neumann boundary conditions, the operators may in our case be different; more generally, we consider systems with fractional powers of the type that were studied in a recent work by the present authors. In our analysis, we show the Fréchet differentiability of the associated control-to-state operator, establish the existence of solutions to the associated adjoint system, and derive the first-order necessary conditions of optimality for a cost functional of tracking type. © 2019 by the authors.

2016, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Rocca, Elisabetta, Sprekels, Jürgen

In this paper, a distributed optimal control problem is studied for a diffuse interface model of tumor growth which was proposed by HawkinsDaruud et al. in [25]. The model consists of a CahnHilliard equation for the tumor cell fraction 'coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation for a function phi representing the nutrientrich extracellular water volume fraction. The distributed control u monitors as a right-hand side the equation for sigma and can be interpreted as a nutrient supply or a medication, while the cost function, which is of standard tracking type, is meant to keep the tumor cell fraction under control during the evolution. We show that the control-to-state operator is Fréchet differentiable between appropriate Banach spaces and derive the first-order necessary optimality conditions in terms of a variational inequality involving the adjoint state variables.

2016, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

We investigate a distributed optimal control problem for a nonlocal phase field model of viscous Cahn-Hilliard type. The model constitutes a nonlocal version of a model for two-species phase segregation on an atomic lattice under the presence of diffusion that has been studied in a series of papers by P. Podio-Guidugli and the present authors. The model consists of a highly nonlinear parabolic equation coupled to an ordinary differential equation. The latter equation contains both nonlocal and singular terms that render the analysis difficult. Standard arguments of optimal control theory do not apply directly, although the control constraints and the cost functional are of standard type. We show that the problem admits a solution, and we derive the first-order necessary conditions of optimality.

2016, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

In the present contribution, a feedback control law is studied for a quasilinear parabolic equation. First, we prove the well-posedness and some regularity results for the CauchyNeumann problem for this equation, modified by adding an extra term which is a multiple of the subdifferential of the distance function from a closed convex set K of L2 (Omega). Then, we consider convex sets of obstacle or double-obstacle type, and we can act on the factor of the feedback control in order to be able to reach the convex set within a finite time, by proving rigorously this property.

2016, Colli, Pierluigi, Gilardi, Gianni, Sprekels, Jürgen

We investigate a distributed optimal control problem for a nonlocal phase field model of viscous Cahn-Hilliard type. The model constitutes a nonlocal version of a model for two-species phase segregation on an atomic lattice under the presence of diffusion that has been studied in a series of papers by P. Podio-Guidugli and the present authors. The model consists of a highly nonlinear parabolic equation coupled to an ordinary differential equation. The latter equation contains both nonlocal and singular terms that render the analysis difficult. Standard arguments of optimal control theory do not apply directly, although the control constraints and the cost functional are of standard type. We show that the problem admits a solution, and we derive the first-order necessary conditions of optimality.