Dynamic Stability of Equilibrium Capillary Drops

Abstract

We investigate a model for contact angle motion of quasi-static capillary drops resting on a horizontal plane. We prove global in time existence and long time behavior (convergence to equilibrium) in a class of star-shaped initial data for which we show that topological changes of drops can be ruled out for all times. Our result applies to any drop which is initially star-shaped with respect to a a small ball inside the drop, given that the volume of the drop is sufficiently large. For the analysis, we combine geometric arguments based on the moving-plane type method with energy dissipation methods based on the formal gradient flow structure of the problem.