Local and global well-posedness in the $L^2$-setting for the Q-tensor model in $\mathbb R^N$ and $\mathbb R^N_+$

Abstract

The paper studies the Q-tensor model for nematic liquid crystals, a system that couples a Navier-Stokes equation with an evolution equation for the order parameter tensor Q. The first goal of the paper is to establish the local well-posedness of the system in $\mathbb R^N$ and $\mathbb R^N_+$ for $N=2,3$ in the $L^2$ framework, improving existing results in the literature, where the existence of local strong solutions was obtained only under smallness assumptions on the initial data. Fundamental is the application of the energy method, which shows a cancellation phenomena on the nonlinear terms, allowing the use of a contraction argument to prove existence and uniqueness of solutions. Finally, with the same approach we establish global well-posedness in the three-dimensional case for small initial data.