Slow motion for one-dimensional nonlinear damped hyperbolic Allen-Cahn systems

Abstract

We consider a nonlinear damped hyperbolic reaction-diffusion system in a bounded interval of the real line with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions and we study the metastable dynamics of the solutions. Using an "energy approach" introduced by Bronsard and Kohn [CPAM 1990] to study slow motion for Allen-Cahn equation and improved by Grant [SIAM J. Math. Anal. 1995] in the study of Cahn-Morral systems, we improve and extend to the case of systems the results valid for the hyperbolic Allen-Cahn equation. In particular, we study the limiting behavior of the solutions as $\varepsilon\to0^+$, where $\varepsilon^2$ is the diffusion coefficient, and we prove existence and persistence of metastable states for a time $T_\varepsilon>\exp(A/\varepsilon)$. Such metastable states have a transition layer structure and the transition layers move with exponentially small velocity.