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Decay to equilibrium for energy-reaction-diffusion systems
We derive thermodynamically consistent models of reaction-diffusion equations coupled to a heat equation. While the total energy is conserved, the total entropy serves as a driving functional such that the full coupled system is a gradient flow. The novelty of the approach is the Onsager structure, which is the dual form of a gradient system, and the formulation in terms of the densities and the internal energy. In these variables it is possible to assume that the entropy density is strictly concave such that there is a unique maximizer (thermodynamical equilibrium) given linear constraints on the total energy and suitable density constraints. We consider two particular systems of this type, namely, a diffusion-reaction bipolar energy transport system, and a drift-diffusion-reaction energy transport system with confining potential. We prove corresponding entropy-entropy production inequalities with explicitly calculable constants and establish the convergence to thermodynamical equilibrium, at first in entropy and further in L1 using Cziszàr-Kullback-Pinsker type inequalities.
On uniform decay of the entropy for reaction-diffusion systems : dedicated to the memory of Klaus Kirchgässner
In this work we derive entropy decay estimates for a class of nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems modeling reversible chemical reactions under the assumption of detailed balance. In particular, we provide explicit bounds for the exponential decay of the relative logarithmic entropy, being based essentially on the application of the log-Sobolev inequality and a convexification argument only, making it quite robust to model variations. An important feature of our analysis is the interaction of the two different dissipative mechanisms: pure diffusion, forcing the system asymptotically to the homogeneous state, and pure reaction, forcing the solution to the (possibly inhomogeneous) chemical equilibrium. Only the interaction of both mechanisms provides the convergence to the homogeneous equilibrium. Moreover, we introduce two generalizations of the main result: we allow for vanishing diffusion constants in some chemical components, and we consider different entropy functionals. We provide a few examples to highlight the usability of our approach and shortly discuss possible further applications and open questions