WIAS Preprint No. 1400, (2009)

Weighted energy-dissipation functionals for gradient flows



Authors

  • Mielke, Alexander
    ORCID: 0000-0002-4583-3888
  • Stefanelli, Ulisse

2010 Mathematics Subject Classification

  • 35K55

Keywords

  • Variational principle, gradient flow, convergence

DOI

10.20347/WIAS.PREPRINT.1400

Abstract

We investigate a global-in-time variational approach to abstract evolution by means of the weighted energy-dissipation functionals proposed by Mielke & Ortiz in ``A class of minimum principles for characterizing the trajectories of dissipative systems''. In particular, we focus on gradient flows in Hilbert spaces. The main result is the convergence of minimizers and approximate minimizers of these functionals to the unique solution of the gradient flow. Sharp convergence rates are provided and the convergence analysis is combined with time-discretization. Applications of the theory to various classes of parabolic PDE problems are presented. In particular, we focus on two examples of microstructure evolution from S. Conti and M. Ortiz ``Minimum principles for the trajectories of systems governed by rate problems''.

Appeared in

  • ESAIM Control Optim. Calc. Var., 17 (2011) pp. 52--85.

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