On the Cahn-Hilliard-Darcy system with mass source and strongly separating potential

Abstract

We study an evolutionary system of Cahn-Hilliard-Darcy type including mass source and transport effects. The system may arise in a number of physical situations related to phase separation phenomena with convection, with the main and most specific application being related to tumoral processes, where the variations of the mass may correspond to growth, or shrinking, of the tumor. We prove existence of weak solutions in the case when the configuration potential for the order parameter $\varphi$ is designed in such a way to keep $\varphi$ in between the reference interval $(-1,1)$ despite the occurrence of mass source effects. Moreover, in the two-dimensional case, we obtain existence and uniqueness of strong (i.e., more regular) solutions.