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Differential, energetic, and metric formulations for rate-independent processes
We consider different solution concepts for rate-independent systems. This includes energetic solutions in the topological setting and differentiable, local, parametrized and BV solutions in the Banach-space setting. The latter two solution concepts rely on the method of vanishing viscosity, in which solutions of the rate-independent system are defined as limits of solutions of systems with small viscosity. Finally, we also show how the theory of metric evolutionary systems can be used to define parametrized and BV solutions in metric spaces.
Multi-pulse evolution and space-time chaos in dissipative systems
We study semilinear parabolic systems on the full space Rn that admit a family of exponentially decaying pulse-like steady states obtained via translations. The multi-pulse solutions under consideration look like the sum of infinitely many such pulses which are well separated. We prove a global center-manifold reduction theorem for the temporal evolution of such multi-pulse solutions and show that the dynamics of these solutions can be described by an infinite systems of ODEs for the positions of the pulses. As an application of the developed theory, we verify the existence of Sinai-Bunimovich space-time chaos in 1D space-time periodically forced Swift-Hohenberg equation.
A metric approach to a class fo doubly nonlinear evolution euations and applications
This paper deals with the analysis of a class of doubly nonlinear evolution equations in the framework of a general metric space. We propose for such equations a suitable metric formulation (which in fact extends the notion of Curve of Maximal Slope for gradient flows in metric spaces, see [5]), and prove the existence of solutions for the related Cauchy problem by means of an approximation scheme by time discretization. Then, we apply our results to obtain the existence of solutions to abstract doubly nonlinear equations in reflexive Banach spaces. The metric approach is also exploited to analyze a class of evolution equations in $L^1$ spaces.
Numerical approaches to rate-independent processes and applicaitons in inelasticity
A general abstract approximation scheme for rate-independent processes in the energetic formulation is proposed and its convergence is proved under various rather mild data qualifications. The abstract theory is illustrated on several examples: plasticity with isotropic hardening, damage, debonding, magnetostriction, and two models of martensitic transformation in shape-memory alloys.
Global existence for rate-independent gradient plasticity at finite strain
We provide a global existence result for the time-continuous elastoplasticity problem using the energetic formulation. For this we show that the geometric nonlinearities via the multiplicative decomposition of the strain can be controlled via polyconvexity and a priori stress bounds in terms of the energy density. While temporal oscillations are controlled via the energy dissipation the spatial compactness is obtain via the regularizing terms involving gradients of the internal variables.
Continuum descriptions for the dynamics in discrete lattices : derivation and justification
The passage from microscopic systems to macroscopic ones is studied by starting from spatially discrete lattice systems and deriving several continuum limits. The lattice system is an infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system displaying a variety of different dynamical behavior. Depending on the initial conditions one sees quite different behavior like macroscopic elastic deformations associated with acoustic waves or like propagation of optical pulses. We show how on a formal level different macroscopic systems can be derived such as the Korteweg-de Vries equation, the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, Whitham's modulation equation, the three-wave interaction model, or the energy transport equation using the Wigner measure. We also address the question how the microscopic Hamiltonian and the Lagrangian structures transfer to similar structures on the macroscopic level. Finally we discuss rigorous analytical convergence results of the microscopic system to the macroscopic one by either weak-convergence methods or by quantitative error bounds.
Weak-convergence methods for Hamiltonian multiscale problems
We consider Hamiltonian problems depending on a small parameter like in wave equations with rapidly oscillating coefficients or the embedding of an infinite atomic chain into a continuum by letting the atomic distance tend to $0$. For general semilinear Hamiltonian systems we provide abstract convergence results in terms of the existence of a family of joint recovery operators which guarantee that the effective equation is obtained by taking the $Gamma$-limit of the Hamiltonian. The convergence is in the weak sense with respect to the energy norm. Exploiting the well-developed theory of $Gamma$-convergence, we are able to generalize the admissible coefficients for homogenization in the wave equations. Moreover, we treat the passage from a discrete oscillator chain to a wave equation with general $rmL^infty$ coefficients
BV solutions and viscosity approximations of rate-independent systems
In the nonconvex case solutions of rate-independent systems may develop jumps as a function of time. To model such jumps, we adopt the philosophy that rate independence should be considered as limit of systems with smaller and smaller viscosity. For the finite-dimensional case we study the vanishing-viscosity limit of doubly nonlinear equations given in terms of a differentiable energy functional and a dissipation potential which is a viscous regularization of a given rate-independent dissipation potential. The resulting definition of `BV solutions' involves, in a nontrivial way, both the rate-independent and the viscous dissipation potential, which play a crucial role in the description of the associated jump trajectories. We shall prove a general convergence result for the time-continuous and for the time-discretized viscous approximations and establish various properties of the limiting $BV$ solutions. In particular, we shall provide a careful description of the jumps and compare the new notion of solutions with the related concepts of energetic and local solutions to rate-independent systems.
Dispersive stability of infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems on lattices
We derive dispersive stability results for oscillator chains like the FPU chain or the discrete Klein-Gordon chain. If the nonlinearity is of degree higher than 4, then small localized initial data decay like in the linear case. For this, we provide sharp decay estimates for the linearized problem using oscillatory integrals and avoiding the nonoptimal interpolation between different $ell^p$ spaces
Reverse approximation of energetic solutions to rate-independent processes
Energetic solutions to rate-independent processes are usually constructed via time-incremental minimization problems. In this work we show that all energetic solutions can be approximated by incremental problems if we allow approximate minimizers, where the error in minimization has to be of the order of the time step. Moreover, we study sequences of problems where the energy functionals have a Gamma limit.