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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Deep quench approximation and optimal control of general Cahn-Hilliard systems with fractional operators and double obstacle potentials
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In the recent paper Well-posedness and regularity for a generalized fractional CahnHilliard system, the same authors derived general well-posedness and regularity results for a rather general system of evolutionary operator equations having the structure of a CahnHilliard system. The operators appearing in the system equations were fractional versions in the spectral sense of general linear operators A and B having compact resolvents and are densely defined, unbounded, selfadjoint, and monotone in a Hilbert space of functions defined in a smooth domain. The associated double-well potentials driving the phase separation process modeled by the CahnHilliard system could be of a very general type that includes standard physically meaningful cases such as polynomial, logarithmic, and double obstacle nonlinearities. In the subsequent paper Optimal distributed control of a generalized fractional CahnHilliard system (Appl. Math. Optim. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1007/s00245-018-9540-7) by the same authors, an analysis of distributed optimal control problems was performed for such evolutionary systems, where only the differentiable case of certain polynomial and logarithmic double-well potentials could be admitted. Results concerning existence of optimizers and first-order necessary optimality conditions were derived, where more restrictive conditions on the operators A and B had to be assumed in order to be able to show differentiability properties for the associated control-to-state operator. In the present paper, we complement these results by studying a distributed control problem for such evolutionary systems in the case of nondifferentiable nonlinearities of double obstacle type. For such nonlinearities, it is well known that the standard constraint qualifications cannot be applied to construct appropriate Lagrange multipliers. To overcome this difficulty, we follow here the so-called deep quench method. This technique, in which the nondifferentiable double obstacle nonlinearity is approximated by differentiable logarithmic nonlinearities, was first developed by P. Colli, M.H. Farshbaf-Shaker and J. Sprekels in the paper A deep quench approach to the optimal control of an AllenCahn equation with dynamic boundary conditions and double obstacles (Appl. Math. Optim. 71 (2015), pp. 1-24) and has proved to be a powerful tool in a number of optimal control problems with double obstacle potentials in the framework of systems of CahnHilliard type. We first give a general convergence analysis of the deep quench approximation that includes an error estimate and then demonstrate that its use leads in the double obstacle case to appropriate first-order necessary optimality conditions in terms of a variational inequality and the associated adjoint state system.
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    Well-posedness and regularity for a fractional tumor growth model
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we study a system of three evolutionary operator equations involving fractional powers of selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded, linear operators having compact resolvents. This system constitutes a generalization of a phase field system of Cahn--Hilliard type modelling tumor growth that has been proposed in Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24) and investigated in recent papers co-authored by the present authors and E. Rocca. The model consists of a Cahn--Hilliard equation for the tumor cell fraction φ, coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation for a function S representing the nutrient-rich extracellular water volume fraction. Effects due to fluid motion are neglected. The generalization investigated in this paper is motivated by the possibility that the diffusional regimes governing the evolution of the different constituents of the model may be of different (e.g., fractional) type. Under rather general assumptions, well-posedness and regularity results are shown. In particular, by writing the equation governing the evolution of the chemical potential in the form of a general variational inequality, also singular or nonsmooth constributions of logarithmic or of double obstacle type to the energy density can be admitted.
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    Optimal control of a phase field system of Caginalp type with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In their recent work ``Well-posedness, regularity and asymptotic analyses for a fractional phase field system'' (Asymptot. Anal. 114 (2019), 93--128), two of the present authors have studied phase field systems of Caginalp type, which model nonconserved, nonisothermal phase transitions and in which the occurring diffusional operators are given by fractional versions in the spectral sense of unbounded, monotone, selfadjoint, linear operators having compact resolvents. In this paper, we complement this analysis by investigating distributed optimal control problems for such systems. It is shown that the associated control-to-state operator is Fréchet differentiable between suitable Banach spaces, and meaningful first-order necessary optimality conditions are derived in terms of a variational inequality and the associated adjoint state variables.
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    Asymptotic analysis of a tumor growth model with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we study a system of three evolutionary operator equations involving fractional powers of selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded, linear operators having compact resolvents. This system constitutes a generalized and relaxed version of a phase field system of Cahn--Hilliard type modelling tumor growth that has originally been proposed in Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24). The original phase field system and certain relaxed versions thereof have been studied in recent papers co-authored by the present authors and E. Rocca. The model consists of a Cahn--Hilliard equation for the tumor cell fraction φ, coupled to a reaction-diffusion equation for a function S representing the nutrient-rich extracellular water volume fraction. Effects due to fluid motion are neglected. Motivated by the possibility that the diffusional regimes governing the evolution of the different constituents of the model may be of different (e.g., fractional) type, the present authors studied in a recent note a generalization of the systems investigated in the abovementioned works. Under rather general assumptions, well-posedness and regularity results have been shown. In particular, by writing the equation governing the evolution of the chemical potential in the form of a general variational inequality, also singular or nonsmooth contributions of logarithmic or of double obstacle type to the energy density could be admitted. In this note, we perform an asymptotic analysis of the governing system as two (small) relaxation parameters approach zero separately and simultaneously. Corresponding well-posedness and regularity results are established for the respective cases; in particular, we give a detailed discussion which assumptions on the admissible nonlinearities have to be postulated in each of the occurring cases.
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    Well-posedness and regularity for a generalized fractional Cahn-Hilliard system
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In this paper, we investigate a rather general system of two operator equations that has the structure of a viscous or nonviscous Cahn–Hilliard system in which nonlinearities of double-well type occur. Standard cases like regular or logarithmic potentials, as well as non-differentiable potentials involving indicator functions, are admitted. The operators appearing in the system equations are fractional versions of general linear operators A and B, where the latter are densely defined, unbounded, self-adjoint and monotone in a Hilbert space of functions defined in a smooth domain and have compact resolvents. In this connection, we remark the fact that our definition of the fractional power of operators uses the approach via spectral theory. Typical cases are given by standard second-order elliptic differential operators (e.g., the Laplacian) with zero Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, but also other cases like fourth-order systems or systems involving the Stokes operator are covered by the theory. We derive in this paper general wellposedness and regularity results that extend corresponding results which are known for either the non-fractional Laplacian with zero Neumann boundary condition or the fractional Laplacian with zero Dirichlet condition. These results are entirely new if at least one of the operators A and B differs from the Laplacian. It turns out that the first eigenvalue 1 of A plays an important und not entirely obvious role: if 1 is positive, then the operators A and B may be completely unrelated; if, however, 1 equals zero, then it must be simple and the corresponding one-dimensional eigenspace has to consist of the constant functions and to be a subset of the domain of definition of a certain fractional power of B. We are able to show general existence, uniqueness, and regularity results for both these cases, as well as for both the viscous and the nonviscous system.
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    A new type of identification problems: Optimizing the fractional order in a nonlocal evolution equation
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2016) Sprekels, Jürgen; Valdinoci, Enrico
    In this paper, we consider a rather general linear evolution equation of fractional type, namely a diffusion type problem in which the diffusion operator is the sth power of a positive definite operator having a discrete spectrum in R+. We prove existence, uniqueness and differentiability properties with respect to the fractional parameter s. These results are then employed to derive existence as well as first-order necessary and second-order sufficient optimality conditions for a minimization problem, which is inspired by considerations in mathematical biology. In this problem, the fractional parameter s serves as the control parameter that needs to be chosen in such a way as to minimize a given cost functional. This problem constitutes a new class of identification problems: while usually in identification problems the type of the differential operator is prescribed and one or several of its coefficient functions need to be identified, in the present case one has to determine the type of the differential operator itself. This problem exhibits the inherent analytical difficulty that with changing fractional parameter s also the domain of definition, and thus the underlying function space, of the fractional operator changes.
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    A distributed control problem for a fractional tumor growth model
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 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 selfadjoint, monotone, unbounded linear operators having compact resolvents. The system is a generalization of a Cahn--Hilliard type phase field system modeling tumor growth that goes back to Hawkins-Daarud et al. (Int. J. Numer. Math. Biomed. Eng. 28 (2012), 3--24.) 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 the recent work Adv. Math. Sci. Appl. 28 (2019), 343--375 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.
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    Longtime behavior for a generalized Cahn--Hilliard system with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2019) 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, which we recently investigated in the paper "Well-posedness and regularity for a generalized fractional CahnHilliard system". More precisely, we give a complete characterization of the Omega-limit of the phase parameter. The characterization depends on the first eigenvalue of one of the involved operators: if this eigenvalue is positive, then the chemical potential vanishes at infinity, and every element of the Omega-limit is a stationary solution to the phase equation; if it is zero instead, then every element of the Omega-limit solves a problem containing a real function which is related to the chemical potential. Such a function is nonunique and time dependent, in general, as we show by means of an example; however, we give sufficient conditions for it to be uniquely determined and constant.
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    An asymptotic analysis for a generalized Cahn--Hilliard system with fractional operators
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2020) Colli, Pierluigi; Gilardi, Gianni; Sprekels, Jürgen
    In a recent paper the same authors have proved existence, uniqueness and regularity results for a class of 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 in the spectral sense of general linear operators, which are densely defined, unbounded, selfadjoint, and monotone in the Hilbert space of square-integrable functions on a bounded and smooth three-dimensional domain, and have compact resolvents. Here, for the case of the viscous system, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of the solution as the fractional power coefficient of the second operator 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 the second operator appears.