L2-gradient flow

April 9, 2019

Abstract
This can be cast as a lemma.

1 From StackExchange
What does L2 gradient flow mean? Here is the Ginzburg–Landau free energy:

2
Z
E(φ) := (F (φ) + |∇φ|2 )dx
Ω 2

Some references say the Allen-Cahn equation

∂φ(x, t)
= 2 ∆φ(x, t) − F 0 (φ(x, t))
∂t
∂φ(x, t)
= 0, on ∂Ω × [0, T ]
∂n
Given an energy E(φ), the associated gradient flow is given by the equation

∂φ ∂E
=− . (1)
∂t ∂φ
In other words, φ decreases along the gradient of E. The terminology stems from
the ’finite dimensional’ case, where a function f (x, y, z) produces a vector field
V = ∇f , which is called its ’gradient vector field’. Then, as with any vector
field, one can study the flow induced by that vector field, i.e. the flow of the
dynamical system given by ẋ = V (x).
In (1), the notation ∂E
∂φ denotes the so-called functional derivative of E to
φ, which generalises the ’gradient’ notion for functions. There exist multiple
versions of the functional derivative, mainly because its definition depends on
the function space on which E acts. Anyway, the idea is to perturb φ a bit, i.e.
to substitute φ → φ+δψ with 0 < δ  1, and work out the resulting expression.

1
In the Ginzburg-Landau case, you get

2
Z
2
E(φ + δψ) = F (φ + δψ) + |∇φ + δ∇ψ| dx
Ω 2
2 2
Z
2 2
= F (φ) + δF 0 (φ) ψ + |∇φ| + 2 δ∇φ · ∇ψ + δ 2 |∇ψ| dx
Ω 2 2
Z
= E(φ) + δ F 0 (φ) ψ + 2 ∇φ · ∇ψ dx + O(δ 2 )
Ω
Z Z
 0
F (φ) − 2 ∆φ ψ dx + ∇φ · ∇ψ dn + O(δ 2 ),

= E(φ) + δ
Ω δΩ

where the last equation was derived using Stokes’ theorem. If you now assume
that the gradient of φ vanishes at the boundary of Ω, the integral over δΩ
vanishes, and you’re left with
Z
 0
F (φ) − 2 ∆φ ψ dx

E(φ + δψ) − E(φ) = δ

Ω
= δ F 0 (φ) − 2 ∆φ, ψ 2


up to terms of order δ 2 , where h·, ·i is the L2 inner product over Ω. The above
is now interpreted as the directional derivative of E in the direction of φ, i.e.
 
∂E E(φ + δψ) − E(φ)
0
= F (φ) − 2 ∆φ, ψ 2 ,

,ψ := lim
∂φ 2 δ→0 δ

and therefore we see that

∂E
= F 0 (φ) − 2 ∆φ. (2)
∂φ

Using (2) in (1) now gives the Allen-Cahn equation.