On the thin film Muskat and the thin film Stokes equations

Abstract

The present paper is concerned with the analysis of two strongly coupled systems of degenerate parabolic partial differential equations arising in multiphase thin film flows. In particular, we consider the two-phase thin film Muskat problem and the two-phase thin film approximation of the Stokes flow under the influence of both, capillary and gravitational forces. The existence of global weak solutions for medium size initial data in large function spaces is proved. Moreover, exponential decay results towards the equilibrium state are established, where the decay rate can be estimated by explicit constants depending on the physical parameters of the system. Eventually, it is shown that if the initial datum satisfies additional (low order) Sobolev regularity, we can propagate Sobolev regularity for the corresponding solution. The proofs are based on a priori energy estimates in Wiener and Sobolev spaces.